Beneath the Snow: WILLOW CHILD
by hakojo
Summary: You know not what you treasure the most until it is lost. f/f, post SSS.
1. Chapter 1

雪の下 (Beneath the Snow); WILLOW CHILD

I squared off with my opponent, crouching into a defensive stance with my fists close to my body. He mimicked my pose, although he was unable to keep his weight from shifting minutely back and forth between his feet – definitely not a full cyborg. I stared at him, remaining perfectly still, waiting for him to move.

Finally, he lunged forward, aiming a blow at my head, obviously anticipating that I'd deflect it with my hands. Instead, I dropped low to the ground, sweeping one leg in a wide arc and catching his ankle.

The look on his face as his back hit the floor was priceless.

I stood up and stepped back a few paces, waiting for him to get to his feet, but he seemed to have had enough, and crawled off to the safety of the sidelines. I sighed.

"That's all? All right, who's next?"

After a few moments of stunned silence, a man roughly the size and shape of a refrigerator charged at me with a roar straight out of a lame kung-fu movie. I grappled with him for a few seconds before turning his higher center of gravity against him and toppling him to the ground as well.

They seemed to be learning, at least - my third volunteer, instead of attacking me head-on, feinted left and right a few times before aiming a low blow at my ribcage, to which I responded by arcing my body backward and striking him under the chin with my heel. Number Four took things one step further, signaling to one of his cohorts to grab me from behind while I was otherwise occupied; sensing the other man closing in on my back, I'd ducked down and then exploded upward again, driving my shoulder into his stomach and taking advantage of his momentum to heave him bodily into his companion.

The rest of the crowd burst into laughter, and a few actually began to applaud. I turned to face them.

"Let's try that scenario again. You," I said, pointing to the face with the biggest smirk on it. "I'm going to turn around, and you're going to attack me from behind."

My victim stepped forward, looking rather nervous now that I'd singled him out, and I smiled.

"Come on. And really _mean_ it, all right?"

I turned my back to him. There was a moment of quiet, and then I heard his footsteps pounding against the floor as he ran toward me, so loud to my ears as to be almost deafening. When he was almost on top of me, I spun quickly to one side and then back again, ramming the point of my elbow up under his ribs. Winded, he crumpled forward, and I wrapped one arm around his throat, using my weight to drag him down to his knees. With my other hand, I yanked my pistol from its holster and pressed it into his cheek.

"Now you're dead. Anything on your person can be taken by the enemy and used against the rest of your team, who are now that much weaker for having lost a member."

I relaxed my hold on his neck, then got to my feet and turned towards the rest of the assembly again.

"This is what's going to happen to you out in the field. You will be up against people with concealed weapons, who can sense you coming without even having to see you, and who haven't been asked by Chief Aramaki to please not damage the new recruits if they can help it."

The man I'd just incapacitated was stirring; still facing in the other direction, I pointed my gun at his head, and he froze.

"Yes, you'll have the ability to camouflage yourselves, and you'll be armed, but that doesn't mean you can be stupid. You are not here for theatrics; you're here to get a job done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Are we all clear on this?"

There were a few scattered mumbles of assent. I narrowed my eyes.

"I may not be your instructor, or your full-time commander, but I'm still a superior officer. Now, are we _clear?_"

The response was crisp and unanimous this time.

"Yes, Major!"

"Thank you."

I slid my pistol back into its holster and walked towards the hallway, leaving more silence in my wake.

Batou had been watching the spectacle from the doorway - he applauded softly as I walked past him.

"So," I said, "I take it that's what you wanted?"

"Job well done. Thanks."

"Don't mention it – although I'm still not entirely sure why you asked me to come in and rough up your hand-to-hand class in the first place."

"Just wait," said Batou meditatively, surveying the group still in the training area. None of them had moved. "It'll be good for their self-confidence."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They've got too damn much of it, that's the problem." He sighed, folding his arms across his chest. "I was gonna go in and scare 'em myself, but then I figured, why not ask a true professional?"

I couldn't help but smile.

"I see. Well, any time I can be of service…"

"I'll give you a call – wouldn't mind seeing your face around the building some more, either. We miss you, you know."

"Right."

I turned and walked away, waving as I went.

I had nothing more to say. What I missed was never going to come back, and it was stupid and sentimental of me to keep wishing for it every time I ended up here. Section 9 was becoming like a drug to me – each job I took brought me the incredible high of nostalgia, followed swiftly by the crushing disappointment of reality, and always ending with a masochistic desire for more.

Ironically, my stupidity and sentimentality were what had ruined it all in the first place.

I needed to think about something else.

I forced myself to go over the evening I had planned – Kurutan had finally managed to talk me into spending the night with her and Ran, and they were going to take me to a new club they'd found recently. She was quite excited about it, although personally I was more interested in what would happen afterward, when we made it back to their apartment. Between all of our work schedules and my other commitments, it had been a very long time since the three of us had been together all at once.

I was going to go home, change clothes, declare myself unreachable for the rest of the day, and then not think about anything other than getting my girlfriends as drunk as they wanted. No more self-induced guilt – I was going to have some fun.

I had just reached my car when a transmission from a very familiar ID flashed into my cyberbrain, sending my thoughts scattering in all directions. I accepted it immediately

Speaking of other commitments…

_Good afternoon, Major._

_Yoko – are you all right? Usually you don't call this late in the day._

_I'm fine, thank you. And yourself?_

_Not bad. What's up?_

_Oh, well…I haven't seen you in a while, and I was just wondering…if you were doing anything later._

Even though I couldn't see her face, I knew her well enough to picture the delicate flush coloring her cheeks at that moment. I sighed.

_I am, actually._

Silence. She'd been expecting me to say no.

…_Yoko?_

…_I see. Well, in that case, I'm sorry I bothered you._

_Don't worry about it. I'll come visit you soon, all right?_

_Mhmm. Have a nice evening._

She ended the transmission before I had the chance to say anything else. I sighed again in exasperation, the suspension of my car protesting loudly as I threw myself into the driver's seat.

So much for going the rest of the day without guilting myself about anything.

The annoying part was that I had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. I'd been very clear when the prime minister and I had made our little arrangement; there were other women, and there had been for quite some time. In the year we'd been seeing each other, I had already pushed them aside for her sake more than a few times, and now it was her turn. I'd spoiled her; that was the problem.

Besides, even if I left now, I wouldn't be able to make it to Fukuoka before midnight. She'd be asleep already; I'd have to creep very carefully into her room, and then slide into her bed without waking her. She wouldn't notice me until after I'd linked up with her – she'd smile in her sleep as I entered her dreams, subconsciously moving her hand up to where I liked to rest my arm around her waist, only to realize that I was actually there with her. Her eyes would open slowly, and then…

I brushed those thoughts aside. They weren't helping.

I took the turn out of the parking deck a little faster than I probably should have. What I really wanted was to get on the expressway and just drive for a good long while until my head was clear, but this wasn't exactly practical at the moment. Instead, I maneuvered out onto the main road, and then began the slow, painful process of meandering through the city back to my apartment.

Traffic was even worse than usual. It had snowed earlier, and while nothing had really stuck to the ground, the chilly gray clouds hanging overhead were enough of a threat that the general public felt it necessary to drive well below the posted speed limits. While I recognized that snow was rare enough in this part of the country to cause some alarm when it happened, I couldn't help but think that this was a bit of an overreaction. These people needed to spend a winter in Western China, or even in Etorofu or Hokkaido; then they would see snow.

Somehow, I managed to crawl back to the complex in which I lived within half an hour. I deposited my car safely in the garage, and then took the elevator up to my apartment on the top floor. As soon as I stepped through the front door, the warm familiarity of the house Net enveloped me, and I connected to it at once; it immediately informed me that all of the security systems were still functioning as they were supposed to, no calls had been forwarded to my external message service, and that my orchids had been watered, right on schedule.

Well, all right, then. I released the connection, and then opened up a cybercomm channel.

_Kurutan? You there?_

The response was immediate.

_Motoko-san! Hi! Why are you calling? You're not going to bail on us, are you?_

The idea of wrapping my arms delicately around the prime minister's sleeping form flashed into my brain again. _Well, actually_…

_Of course not. I just wanted to make sure I was still on to come pick you two up at seven-thirty._

_Yup! Ran-chan's not home quite yet, but she just left work, so she should be here soon. I'm sure we'll both be ready by then!_

_All right. See you._

_Bye!_

I closed the channel, dragged the palms of my hands slowly down the length of my face, and then stalked off toward the bathroom to shower.

From an emotional standpoint, I thought as the jet of hot water pounded against my forehead, it was probably healthy to take a break from one another ever now and then. After all, it seemed like I was driving out to Fukuoka every other week, which was far more often than I'd ever intended. If I spent some time _away_ from the prime minister, with other people, I'd appreciate her all the more when I went to see her again.

I finished my shower, toweled the moisture from my hair (in spite of the manufacturer specifications, it had always reacted badly to being blow-dried), and began to dig vigorously through my closet for fresh clothes. Once I'd found something suitably provocative, I dressed, gave my hair a final comb-through, and headed back down to the garage to collect my car again. It was only quarter to seven, but I had nothing else to do, and unless the traffic situation had improved drastically within the last hour, I'd be lucky to reach my destination by the time I was supposed to anyway.

Besides, even if it had, neither of my girls was likely to bother me about being _early_ for once.

I arrived at their apartment at close to twenty after; judging by the way she tackled me, Kurutan seemed to have been waiting by the door for me to get there since I'd called her. She was wearing a backless, Lolita-esque frock in black and pink, and I could hear the heavily starched underskirts crumpling as she collided with my body. I sighed and patted her on the head, straightening the cat-ear headband that had been knocked askew by the impact.

"Hey, you."

She pulled away from me at once, mashing the palms of her hands into her hips.

"That's it? You haven't even so much as come over in months, and that's all you have to say to me?"

"Well, what do you want? You should know by now that you're never going to get an apology, so if that's what you're after…"

"Hmph!"

She folded her arms across her chest and turned away from me in a graceful pirouette. I smiled and set my hands on her shoulders.

"I'll make it up to you – I always do, right?"

She sighed. "I guess…You'll have to be _extra_-nice to us tonight, though, or else I may not forgive you this time."

I squeezed her shoulder affectionately. "Brat. C'mon, where's your better half?"

"Still getting dressed. Ran-_chan_!" she called, marching over to their bedroom and sticking her head through the doorway. "Would you hurry up? Motoko-_san_ is waiting for us!"

"I know, I'm almost done," said Ran.

"What are you even doing right now, anyway?" said Kurutan, disappearing into the bedroom.

The explosion was immediate.

"Hey! Cut it out, all right?"

"If you needed help, you should have asked me!"

"Well I _don't_, so I didn't! Let go!"

"That's really all you're going to do with your hair? Jeez…at least let me put it up for you…"

"I said let _go_, you psycho! Do you want to get out of here at any point this evening or not?"

After a few more seconds, they both tumbled out into the living room. Kurutan's cat ears had become dislodged again, and Ran fixed them somewhat irritatedly before turning to me. She'd chosen to dress more conservatively, at least compared to her girlfriend, sticking to a simple pair of black leather pants and a sleeveless red top.

"Hey. Long time, no see."

"I know," I said. "Everything all right?"

"For now," said Ran, rolling her eyes at Kurutan. "How's your continued state of national emergency or whatever treating you?"

Ran was the shrewder of the two, and had long since figured out that I was seeing someone else, although it didn't seem to bother her too much. Kurutan was the one who'd probably be the most disappointed - we had an unspoken agreement that she was never to be enlightened about the situation.

"Driving me crazy," I said, not untruthfully.

"Well, let's see if we can't distract you for a little while, huh?" she said, her eyes sparkling.

I smiled. "Sounds good to me."

* * *

><p>The club was small, dark, and very crowded, although we managed to secure some space in a nice, secluded corner. I sat on the low sofa with Kurutan draped across my lap and Ran sitting at my side, each of them alternately catching me up on what they'd been doing in the month and a half since we'd last gotten together. As I chatted with them, I tried desperately to give in to the atmosphere of the place - between the colorful laser patterns flashing on the ceiling, the tangle of attractive men and women moving together on the dance floor, and the music, so loud that I had to use my lip-reading analysis software to understand either of my companions when they spoke to me, I was honestly impressed at my own inability to just shut my brain down and stop thinking. I might have had an easier time of it if the copious amounts of alcohol we were consuming had any effect on me whatsoever, but that couldn't be helped.<p>

I was no stranger to refusing requests for my company; I'd done it to Kurutan every other week since we'd met. The prime minister had called me, and I'd told her I was unavailable. I'd even done it politely – why couldn't I just ignore the situation and move on? My behavior was completely irrational.

Not that the word 'rational' could really be applied to this relationship in the first place.

I ran my hand lightly over Kurutan's bare shoulders. She always got mad at me when I turned her down, but it was never for more than a few hours, if that. She'd go complain to Ran, who'd cuddle with her until she felt better, and by the next time she saw me, she'd've forgotten about the previous incident entirely.

That was how the three of us had managed to maintain this thing for so long; there was always someone else there to act as a buffer.

With Yoko, there was no one else. When she needed someone to hold her and calm her down, she turned to me.

She had actually called me this time, too.

I should have gone.

Ran sighed and leaned against my shoulder, reaching down to give Kurutan's hand an affectionate squeeze and receiving what was almost a satisfied purr in return. We'd been there for a little over two hours; it was probably time to close out my tab and then take them back home for the night.

Tomorrow I'd make the trip to the prime minister's residence, and I'd stay for however long she needed me.

* * *

><p>I arrived back at my apartment before midnight; although I'd intended to spend more time with my girlfriends, both of them were so drunk that they'd barely lasted for another half an hour after we'd gone back to their place. We had spent some time linked, of course – once I took on a job, I saw it through to the finish – but after a while, the images being generated in our shared memory became so muddled that I had disconnected and just let them sleep.<p>

They were so cute when they were curled up together.

When I got home, I put a pot of water on for coffee, then went to my room and stripped down to my underwear, pulling on a t-shirt as sort of a seasonal afterthought. I had considered going to bed myself, but I'd slept for about fourteen hours over the past two days and didn't feel any particularly urgent need for more. I was just going to curl up on the daybed with my coffee and go diving for a while, and if my brain decided I needed to sleep at some point, it was more than welcome to let me know.

I'd decided not to call ahead and let the prime minister know I was coming; I wanted to make it a surprise.

Almost exactly twelve hours later, I was in my car, heading for Fukuoka. It had started to snow again just as I left Niihama, although like yesterday, the snow seemed to be melting away on impact, not that I was complaining. By the time I came within sight of the city, the sun had set and the snow had turned into a fine, drizzly rain.

Out of idle curiosity, I called up the prime minister's current location on the IR system. She was travelling along one of the outer expressway loops on the opposite side of the city, probably heading back to her office.

That was good; if she'd been out during the day, she'd be more likely to go to bed early, and I wouldn't have to wait quite as long for her.

Just as I was about to release the map, the marker representing the prime minister stopped moving, and then began to blink slowly. The connection had been lost.

Maybe she was still mad at me and didn't want me to be able to spy on her.

If so, that was a hell of a lot of talent she'd been keeping hidden from me for the past year. I opened up a channel.

_Yoko?_

No response.

_Yoko, what happened? You had better not be ignoring me because you're sulking…_

Nothing.

Perhaps it was just a network error, or she'd somehow tripped something in her cyberbrain that had sent her into autistic mode. I tried reaching her bioroid assistant, who was certain to be in the car with her.

She was offline too. When I pulled up the ID of the vehicle and searched for its location, I found it stopped by the side of the road.

I reconfigured my route, and then punched down on my car's accelerator; this was getting strange. I wanted to check it out. My GPS had my travel time at only 40 minutes; given the speed at which I was driving, I'd make it there in about half that.

Suddenly, the first marker stopped blinking, and then disappeared altogether.

The Prime Minister of Japan had vanished.

* * *

><p>(AN: And we're off! This chapter went through about five different incarnations before I finally found one that worked - it's like I have to get the Major annoyed about something before I can start writing her correctly, and sending her back to Section 9 for a bit seems to do the trick. Pesky human emotions, always getting in the way...

This is going to be a longer, more action-y story than what I've been putting out recently, although I don't think it'll get anywhere near as long as GENESIS and UNINTENTION. Still, I hope you all enjoy reading, and don't forget to review!)


	2. Chapter 2

My mind raced.

What the hell happened? Was it possible that this was all some sort of enormous equipment malfunction, or was I correct in assuming the worst?

I kept driving – I was travelling at well over 175 kmph, but it didn't feel nearly fast enough.

At last, the car came into view; a black sedan sitting on the left shoulder with its lights still on. It stood at an angle to the road, as if it had been forced over rather than parked there, and a sense of foreboding welled up inside me. I pulled up behind it and got out of my car, my gun at the ready.

I approached the driver's side door, slid my fingers underneath the handle, and pulled.

It was unlocked.

As I opened it, the console lights clicked on, revealing Mari, the prime minister's bioroid, slumped over the steering wheel with a bullet hole through the back of her head. White blood had oozed out of it, the liquid darkening her ash-blonde hair. A pistol hung limply in her right hand; she must have taken it from the still-open glove compartment.

Slowly, I opened the rear passenger door, dreading what I might find there.

The body of a security guard, stuffed hastily into the back seat; he too had been shot through the head. His gun was on the floor of the car – whoever had done this seemed to have just piled everything back inside once they'd taken what they came for.

There was no trace of the prime minister at all.

For the tiniest fraction of a second, I gave myself over to panic.

Once that was over, I took a deep breath and composed myself.

The prime minister's security staff was certainly aware of the situation by now, and had probably already sent a team out to investigate. It would be in my best interest to leave before they got here, as I didn't want to have to answer any awkward questions.

Due to the nature of the incident, Section 9 was bound to get involved as well – they had the means and the resources to investigate the situation properly. My best bet was to head back to Niihama and try to get in on the case. Running it solo was also an option, but that would take longer, and time was of the essence here.

I slid into my car and took off for the nearest exit ramp, then turned onto a side street and got back on the expressway as quickly as I could.

I'd been driving for all of fifteen minutes when an alert for an incoming cybercomm appeared in my field of vision. It was from the chief, and I had a fairly good idea of what it was about.

_Major, where are you right now?_

_Outside of Fukuoka, headed for Niihama. Why?_

I couldn't know anything just yet.

_Get over to the office as quickly as you can – the prime minister's gone missing, and Section 9 has just been cleared to handle the investigation._

_Missing? What happened?_

_It seems to have been a coordinated attack. The prime minister and her entourage were travelling in two vehicles; from what we can tell, they were strategically separated from one another, and then individually run off the road. There were no survivors in either vehicle – four security guards were found dead, and the prime minister's personal assistant has been disabled as well._

I'd missed the other car; it must have been further down the road from the one I'd been tracking.

_And the prime minister herself?_

_We're assuming that she's been taken hostage by the perpetrators and that her cyberbrain functions are being jammed; all attempts to contact her have failed, and none of her GPS signals are showing up._

That was about as far as I'd gotten myself. I sighed in frustration.

_I'm on my way, but it'll still be a few hours before I can get there. Any information so far as to who's behind this?_

_Not at this moment. The vehicles and the bodies of the security team are currently being transported to Section 9 for analysis, although you'll probably get here before they do._

_Okay; what do you want me to do, then?_

_For now, I want you to assist Ishikawa's team in maintaining the press blackout, and in locating any demands or claims of responsibility that might point us toward a suspect._

_Got it. I'll see you soon._

I closed the link and focused on the road. It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that I didn't ask him how much he planned to pay me for this.

The drive was too monotonous; I was starting to slip into panic again. In order to keep myself occupied, I cybercommed Ishikawa to see if he had any more information.

_No new developments at the moment – right now we're making sure that the net we put up is secure, and that includes making sure nothing can spread out to private sites as well. I'm glad to hear you're joining us on this one; we'll need all the help we can get._

_Total blackout, huh?_

_Well, yeah. Can you imagine the reaction if anybody got wind of this?_

_I understand. Besides, if nobody knows the prime minister was kidnapped, nobody can pay attention to whoever did it, which is probably what they want._

_Bingo. This goes way beyond operating in secrecy; not even everyone at Section 9 knows about it._

I missed the good old days, when you could automatically trust every member of the top-secret assault team because there were only eight of us and we had no lives whatsoever outside of each other.

_I see. Who all is in on it?_

_The old guard, of course; Togusa's taken point on the investigation for the time being, although he'll probably be willing to hand the retrieval operation over to you if you want it. Azuma and Proto are working with him too, and I've got a couple of the boys helping me on the information side of things…I don't know if you'd remember them._

_Well, I look forward to meeting everyone when I get there._

_Yup. I'll keep you posted._

_Thanks._

_By the way, Major, it's nice to hear you enthusiastic about something for a change._

_Hey, I've finally got something exciting to do._

And I needed to channel all of my energy into it to keep from getting upset and doing something impulsive and stupid.

Where had all of this anger and worry come from? It didn't make any sense; it was as if someone had broken into my house and stolen something from me – something simple and functional that I appreciated for its quiet, predictable usefulness, like a nice coffee table—and instead of just retrieving it quickly and quietly, I was mentally preparing myself to brutally murder anyone who got in my way. And this was assuming that the coffee table hadn't been scuffed up or scratched or otherwise damaged; if it had, well, then there would _truly_ be hell to pay.

Absolutely bizarre.

I pressed down on the accelerator, and my car shot off into the night.

* * *

><p>Even though it was well past one in the morning when I finally made it back to Niihama, the Section 9 offices were still awake and fully lit. I left my car in the garage and immediately headed for the dive room – three of the terminals were in use, one by Ishikawa and the other two by a pair of younger men I'd probably seen before but whom I didn't remember very distinctly. Not wanting to waste time waiting around for someone to notice me, I crossed the room and connected to Ishikawa's terminal, linking immediately with his field of view.<p>

An enormous, translucent pane, shimmering like a sheet of fabric, seemed to stretch across the entire breadth of the local Net. Most of the traffic passing through it was white, although here and there I saw pieces that were a lighter or darker gray, and some that were almost black. These slid along the surface of the plane, and then disappeared when they reached its side.

_Impressive._

_Thanks. We didn't have a lot of time, so the filtering is pretty rough, but since it's just a temporary measure, it doesn't really matter. _

He disconnected from the terminal and yawned widely, stretching his arms up over his head, and then nodded toward the end of the room where the other two men were working.

"I've got Kuro and Pikapi sifting through what we've caught in the dragnet – so far, no claims of responsibility have turned up. That's pretty much where we're at right now; the Red Suits are running forensic analysis on the two cars, the security personnel, and the bioroid, so hopefully we'll hear from them in a few hours."

I nodded. "I'm going to get inside the system for a while and give it a once-over, if you don't mind. I want to get a feel for it before I join you on data analysis."

"Sure, help yourself. I'll bring us up some coffee – looks like it's gonna be a long night."

"Thanks."

I sat down in front of one of the terminals and connected to the Net.

_Injecting Chroma file…_

It was so much easier to interface with virtual concepts when I had an analogue for my own physical body. Most of my colleagues had trouble manipulating this sort of digital avatar, but for me, it came as easily as breathing.

Once I was fully contained within Chroma, I let myself drift downward through the sea of information, to the enormous, shimmering web that stretched across it. It really was amazing, especially considering how little time they'd had to set it up. We'd orchestrated any number of press blackouts during my tenure at Section 9, but never anything on this scale.

Two indistinct markers were tracing alternately along its length, gathering up the pieces of information that had been blocked; I assumed that they belonged to the two other men in the dive room. As I drew closer, I registered a group of very different shapes, stationed at intervals along the net, diligently monitoring the traffic, although they all turned around at once when I came within range.

_It's the Major!_

_What? Where?_

_No way!_

_I see her too! Up there!_

Four tachikomas raced toward me, each clutching at least one bit of data in a claw, chattering cheerfully over one another.

_Hi, Major!_

_How are you?_

_Gosh, it's been such a long time…_

_We heard you were going to be joining us, but we didn't think you'd get here so quickly!_

_Are you helping Mr. Ishikawa too?_

_He told us to scan everything that got blocked by the dragnet...kind of a waste of our superior processing capabilities, if you ask me!_

_Right! Couldn't this all have been left to support androids instead of our AIs?_

_Please, comrades, it's our AIs that make us invaluable for this task! A support android wouldn't be any more delicate than the barrier itself – that's why we were brought in, to temper this filtration system with our own advanced senses of discretion and subtlety!_

_That's true…and at least it's something to do!_

_Yeah! Jeez, it's like Section 9 just got used to working without us – there's never anything for us to do anymore!_

_Uh-huh!_

I'd never thought I would find myself sympathizing with the plight of tachikomas, but, I supposed, there was a first time for everything.

_So, have you found anything promising yet?_

They immediately began speaking over one another again.

_Not yet!_

_Yeah, barely anything is getting sent over to us…_

_It's probably due to the time; nobody's noticed that the prime minister is missing because they're all sleeping!_

_Things are going to get pretty interesting later on, though!_

_Right!_

_Hey, tachikomas!_

I didn't recognize the last voice, but the tachikomas certainly did; they froze as if they'd been caught doing something they weren't supposed to.

A marker bearing an unfamiliar ID number hovered overhead.

_You're supposed to be concentrating on your job! Now, unless you've found something, get back to your posts!_

My Chroma form floated upward to meet it.

_It's all right – I distracted them. They were just getting back to work. Weren't you?_

I turned to the little tachikoma-cloud that had trailed behind me.

_Yes, ma'am!_

_We'll catch up with you later, Major!_

The cloud dispersed at once, each member zooming off in a different direction. Once they were all out of sight, I returned my attention to the unfamiliar presence in front of me.

_I'm sorry, but I don't believe we've met before._

He knew who I was, of course; despite his lack of a humanoid avatar, I could tell that I was making him uncomfortable.

_I'm Kuro, ma'am – it's a pleasure to finally be working with you._

_Likewise. What's the situation?_

_So far, most of what we've intercepted has been benign. We're still looking for anything that could point us toward a suspect or location._

_Well, keep looking, then. I want you to let me know the second you turn anything up._

_Yes, ma'am._

I dropped down to one side of the net and hung there, watching the data as it drifted by.

I'd seen a lot of these sorts of incidents over the course of my career, and generally they followed a predictable pattern. Soon after the kidnapping, the responsible party would make some sort of announcement, either to demand a ransom, threaten physical harm, or just to make the general public aware of the fact that they existed. After all, the entire point of the venture was usually to draw attention to a specific group or cause.

Our investigation was proceeding under the assumption that this abduction was politically motivated. Given the victim in this case, it was a fairly obvious conclusion to draw.

However, as the hours dragged by without any comment from whoever had attacked the prime minister, I began to wonder.

Even if the perpetrators had planned to get to safety before broadcasting their involvement, something should have shown up by now. If their aim was to make a statement by doing this, keeping it quiet seemed a bit counterproductive.

At the same time, the abduction would have taken quite a lot of planning and coordination to pull off. What kind of group would be able to expend that amount of effort just to settle a personal score?

The whole situation was extremely unusual.

_Everything all right, Major? You seem awfully agitated._

I was so deep in my own thoughts that it took me a moment to respond to the cybercomm.

_I'm fine, Batou; how is the investigation coming on your end?_

_The forensic report just came up from the lab, and we're about to go over it in the briefing room._

_I'll be right there. Tachikomas, continue monitoring and let me know if you find anything._

_Yes, ma'am!_

* * *

><p>Although there was space enough in the cavernous briefing room for more than forty people, the present gathering only occupied the first row and a half of chairs; this was still too crowded for me, and instead of joining them, I'd elected to lean against the back wall. Togusa stood at the head of the room, silhouetted against the enormous screen that dominated the far wall – no matter how many times I saw him, for some reason I kept expecting to see his old face instead of his new prosthetic one, and the subtle differences between the two were bothering me.<p>

"Yesterday evening," he began, "at approximately 6:57, security personnel lost contact with the prime minister and her accompanying staff just outside of Fukuoka, as she was returning to her offices. When a team arrived at her last known location to investigate, they discovered the vehicle in which she had been travelling, plus another that had been accompanying it, on the side of the road, along with the bodies of her security compliment and her assistant. The prime minister herself was nowhere to be found, and her status and location at this time are unknown. So far, no demands or claims by a responsible party have been made."

The team was small enough that none of us really needed the recap, but protocol was protocol; I folded my arms across my chest in irritation as I waited it out.

"Each car had a significant dent somewhere on the driver's side, indicating that there was an impact with another, larger vehicle, and the marks left on the pavement indicated that each one had been forced off to the side of the road. Fingerprints and other DNA evidence were found at both locations, although at this time, the only conclusive matches are to members of the prime minister's personal staff."

"So this group or whatever managed to kill five highly trained security guards and make off with the prime minister without leaving a trace?" said Azuma from a seat in the front row. "Just who the hell are these people?"

"There were traces," said Togusa evenly. "It's just that none of them match anyone in the MHLW database. We're currently attempting to expand the search by gaining access to foreign records as well."

"And the security guards, how were they killed?" said Batou.

Images of the deceased men flashed up on the screen.

"The prime minister's assistant and the man in the car with her were both shot once through the head, at point-blank range. The prosthetic bodies of other four seem to have taken significant damage from submachine gun fire, although they were also shot once through the head – presumably to destroy their cyberbrains. The ammunition and shell casings we recovered were consistent with the firearms commonly traded by arms smugglers in the Kanto refugee residential zones."

"That's not much to go on," I said. "The Kanto region is the heart of the trade, but there are arteries running out to all of the other zones; the most it tells us is that this attack wasn't perpetrated by law-abiding citizens, which I think we all knew anyway."

"This is true," said Togusa, after an uncomfortably long pause. "We don't have the intel to try to track the perpetrators through the weapons flow; therefore, our main course of investigation from this point on will be attempting to match the DNA data we recovered, as well as monitoring relevant channels for any claims of responsibility. That's it."

This must have been his standard form of dismissal, because the room began to empty at once. I hung back and waited until everyone else had cleared out before heading up to the front.

"Major," said Togusa warmly as I approached him. "I'm glad to see you're joining us on this case – we're going to need all the help we can get."

"Right," I said. "Speaking of which, I've been helping Ishikawa's crew with communications monitoring - did you want me to stay with them, or do you have something else for me to do now?"

Even with the still-unfamiliar prosthetics, Togusa's momentary look of confusion was oddly endearing. I usually worked as an independent contractor, and he wasn't used to being in a situation where he had the authority to command me.

"I'll leave that up to you for now," he said at last. "Put yourself to work wherever you think you'll be the most useful."

I would have felt the most useful travelling to what was left of Tokyo and tearing the spine out of each of the weapons dealers in the area until one of them gave me information about a group large enough to have orchestrated this whole thing, but this was neither feasible nor practical at the moment.

"I'll get back to combing the local Nets, then," I said. "Let me know if you need me for anything."

"Sure."

The word echoed behind my back as I strode out into the hallway.

The sun was just starting to rise above the skyline, and I stopped in front of one of the windows to watch it.

Twelve hours. She had been missing for nearly twelve hours, and I had accomplished nothing.

I'd initially joined forces with Section 9 on this because I'd thought their resources would take me further than I could have gotten on my own in the same amount of time; now it was looking as though I might have done just as well to go back home and work the case by myself.

For all the potential evidence we had, we were still at the mercy of the perpetrators, waiting for them to step up and claim responsibility.

I had rarely felt so helpless before.

The worst part was that only a small fraction of this feeling was due to my frustration at not being able to advance the case any more quickly. At some point in the last twelve hours, a line that I'd always maintained very carefully had disappeared as quickly and as neatly as the person whom it concerned.

It wasn't the Prime Minister of Japan who was missing; it was Yoko. _My_ Yoko.

And I was not going to rest until I'd retrieved her.

I leaned back against the window, closed my eyes, and opened up an often-used cybercomm channel. It was cold and unresponsive now, and I hated myself for it, but I opened it just the same.

_Where __**are**__ you…?_

* * *

><p>(AN: Thanks for all the comments so far, everyone! I really wish more of you were signed, because when I get feedback my very favorite thing is to respond with avalanches of love, but I guess a group love-avalanche right here will have to do. I'm absolutely _honored_ by your words of praise, and I hope that you all continue to enjoy my contributions to this tiny little niche of a fandom. -love!-)


	3. Chapter 3

When the man with the gun had turned to her, she'd closed her eyes.

Two people had been shot and killed in front of her; first Mr. Komatsu, when he'd stepped out of the car following the impact, and then Mari.

She had seen enough.

As the man advanced, she'd tried to compose herself, to summon a good last thought upon which to end her forty-eight years of life, but all that came was fear.

There was a click, and then her mind went dark.

She hadn't expected to open her eyes again.

The shapes were blurry and indistinct at first, and then gradually resolved into the image of her own hands, pale tan against her navy blue skirt, lying idly in her lap. She was slumped forward, her gaze pointing blearily at the floor, and she was too confused and exhausted to do much about it.

"Are you all right?"

It wasn't a voice she recognized. Slowly, with great effort, Yoko pulled herself upright.

An elderly man sat in front of her on a dingy sofa, rail-thin and draped in a worn cotton jacket and pants. Although his expression was one of gentle concern, his eyes, gazing unfalteringly at her from behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, were as hard as steel. She stared at him, waiting for him to speak again.

"Oh, good, you're awake - I was beginning to worry. My name is Wenli Zhang," said the man, bowing his head slightly. "I'm very pleased to finally meet you – your father never allowed me the privilege, and it's taken me a lot of time and trouble to arrange it myself."

"My father…" said Yoko slowly.

Her voice was rough from disuse, and the words grated like glass against concrete.

"I knew him quite well," said Mr. Zhang. "We worked together for many years when we were young; right up until he left China to get married, as a matter of fact. We kept in contact for some time, but the war made that rather difficult after a while."

Although she'd tried not to dwell on such a scenario, Yoko had always imagined that being abducted would be fairly straightforward; her captors would spend some time abusing her – physically or mentally, or perhaps both - and then either murder her or be gunned down by an intervening paramilitary team. While she had hoped never to experience any of this firsthand, she figured it was at least something she'd be able to deal with if the situation ever arose. But this….

Trying to make sense of what was happening now was almost a sort of mental torture in and of itself.

"He was so proud," continued Mr. Zhang; "always so very, _very_ proud of his little Yangzi; if he'd lived to see the lovely woman she'd grown into, why, he'd probably be completely overwhelmed."

His tone was conversational, but there was a certain indulgent note to it, as if he thought he was speaking to a precocious child. It was something that Yoko had heard far too often from her first chief cabinet secretary, and she bristled.

Part of her was relieved; she now had something to detest about this man. That made everything much easier.

"What do you want from me?" she demanded.

"I merely wish to speak with you, madam," said Mr. Zhang. "I was afraid that you wouldn't take me seriously unless we met face to face, but I held little hope of being able to arrange an official meeting – as you must be aware, you're rather difficult to reach, especially for someone in my position. Therefore, I was forced to seek out a reasonable alternative."

There was that patronizing tone again.

"You had me kidnapped. Two members of my support staff were killed, that I know of," said Yoko. "That's hardly reasonable."

"Consider it a mark of how very seriously I wanted to meet you," said Mr. Zhang, without so much as batting an eye.

"I see," said Yoko. A tremor crawled down her spine; appearances aside, there was danger here.

"Well, sir," she said quietly, "what was so important to you that you needed to speak to me about it in person?"

"Ah," said Mr. Zhang, as if he'd been waiting for her to ask. "This is going to require a bit of a lengthy explanation. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," said Yoko.

She was afraid now, but she couldn't let it show. A whole lot of people were probably searching for her at this moment; she just needed to keep this man feeling favorably disposed toward her until they figured out where she was.

It suddenly occurred to her that even she didn't know where she was.

Her cyberbrain. In her confusion, she'd forgotten it; hastily, she reached for a connection.

A burst of static seared across her mind, and she doubled forward, wincing from the pain.

"This building is Net-shielded, of course," said Mr. Zhang. "I probably should have told you before; that can't have been pleasant. Now, where was I?"

He cleared his throat.

"I came to this country in 2024, from Baoshan in Yunnan province. I'd made my home there for many years and was determined to stay, but so little of the place was left intact following the war that I was forced to seek shelter elsewhere. I wanted to stay in China, but the government wasn't providing any type of aid for displaced citizens; some of my younger associates decided to relocate to Japan and hire on to help with the reconstruction, and I followed them. We settled in the old capital, and I've remained here ever since."

_The old capital…Tokyo_, thought Yoko. _I'm in Tokyo_.

She was paying close attention to Mr. Zhang's words – if she couldn't contact anyone for help, she'd have to find a way out of this situation on her own. Somehow.

"As you well know, there are others like us; people who were forced from their homes, forced to adapt to a new culture that resented our presence. We lived this way for years, doing our best to survive while being effectively swept under the rug by a government that no longer had any need for us. Finally, almost four years ago now, something happened that gave us hope – Shen Mao's daughter became the prime minister.

"You can't imagine the excitement this instilled in my community. We had all known your father; he was one of us, someone who had gone through what we had. We were certain that he would have told his child of his experiences, and that she would honor his memory and act for his people as the voice for which we had so desperately waited. Things were finally going to change for us. And then, only a few months later, do you know what I found out?"

Yoko assumed that the question was rhetorical, and said nothing.

"You _lied_, madam," said Mr. Zhang. "You erased your entire history. You intentionally avoided your responsibilities to your people and your homeland, treating our plight as if it was an abstract concept that didn't concern you."

He paused, as if to let the weight of his words sink in. Yoko thought of taking the opportunity to answer him, but there were so many things to which she wanted to object that she was shaking trying to decide where to begin.

"As you might imagine," continued her host, "I was very upset. I knew the truth, and it was incredibly difficult for me not to release it on your behalf. But before I did, I wanted to meet with you; I wanted to try to make you understand what we went through because of your inaction. And so, here we are."

He leaned back against the sofa, gazing imperiously at his guest. Yoko took a deep breath, and then fixed him with the most polite, ingratiating smile she could muster.

"I'm afraid there's something I _don't_ understand, sir," she said. "I've done more than any of my predecessors since the war to help resolve the issues faced by Asian refugees residing in Japan; are you upset with me because I haven't done enough, or because you expected me to wield my heretofore unknown dictatorial powers and elevate the refugees to a higher social class, simply because you allegedly knew my father?"

She knew she'd taken a risk by meeting this man's obsession with sarcasm, but it was a manageable one. Her political career, plus the years she'd spent in the legal field before it, had helped her to hone her already considerable talent for reading people, and she was fairly certain that Mr. Zhang had no intention of killing her at this point. The expression on his face was stern, but gently so; he still saw her as an insolent child who needed to be re-educated.

She hoped that he'd maintain this attitude toward her until she'd had some time to plan her way out of this.

If such a thing was even possible.

Her comment seemed to have touched something of a nerve; the lines around Mr. Zhang's face tightened, and for a moment she saw what might have been a flash of anger. Then he sighed, shook his head, and got to his feet, motioning for her to stand also.

"Please, come with me, madam. You'll see soon enough."

He reached for a walking stick that had been tucked in between the sofa and the end table and, leaning gently upon it, ushered her through the door.

Two men had been standing guard out in the hallway, both dressed in the camouflage jumpsuits worn by local laborers. When Mr. Zhang emerged with his guest, one draped a worn, patched kimono jacket over his shoulders, and then held it steady as he fit his arms into the sleeves. Yoko found her own wool overcoat being thrust roughly in her direction by the other man; quietly, she thanked him and put it on.

The building they were in appeared to be a school, or at least what was left of one; the short hallway from what Yoko assumed had once been an administrative office fed into a larger entryway, with a vaulted ceiling and raised concrete blocks on the tile floor where lockers had once stood. Most of the windows were shattered, and very few of the signs still remained on the walls; they'd probably been carted away years ago to be recycled as scrap material.

The party continued through the entrance hall, down another narrow corridor, and then through a doorway that led outside. The door itself was long gone, replaced by a weathered blue tarpaulin; one of the men held it aside so that the rest of the group could pass through.

"This, my dear prime minister," said Mr. Zhang, sweeping one arm demonstratively in front of his body, "is how your people are living."

They were at the far end of a large, open field, enclosed by the collapsed remnants of the building on two sides and a tall chain-link fence on other two. The space was edged with ramshackle shelters built up against the wreckage, ranging from sheets of canvas draped over old bits of furniture to three-sided houses made of scrap metal and plastic. Most of their occupants were still sleeping, wrapped up in old blankets and plastic sheeting and huddled near the smoldering remnants of fires to ward off the bitter cold.

"The families with young children or elderly relatives stay inside the parts of the building that are still sound," said Mr. Zhang. "I've tried to make this a safe place for them, at least compared to what goes on in the rest of the zone. They'll start showing themselves soon enough; it's still early now, but things always get much livelier here when the volunteer groups come around with food."

The group continued to walk across the field. The ground was churned and muddy, frozen into irregular shapes that were extremely difficult for Yoko to navigate in her heels, and she could feel the eyes of Mr. Zhang's men on her back, waiting for her to trip. When she finally did stumble, they made no pretense of hiding their laughter; silently, she picked herself up, dusted off her skirt, and kept walking, determined not to dignify their reaction with a response.

A final few minutes of walking brought them to the end of the field, and to the foot of the destroyed section of the building. While the two end walls were still more or less intact, the middle had sagged long ago, crumbling into a towering pile of concrete slabs and rebar fringed with bits of rubble. Mr. Zhang led the way along the edge of the wreck to a low door with two high, narrow windows on either side of it. One of his men moved forward to open it, and he stepped through, motioning for Yoko to follow. She remained still –the amount of rubble resting on top of the structure made her extremely nervous—until the man behind her prodded her roughly between the shoulders, at which point she moved away from him as quickly as she could.

She found herself in a small room with bare concrete walls and evidence of past linoleum tiling still remaining on the floor. The space was unfurnished, save for two broken crates in a corner and a low bench against the far wall; Mr. Zhang's eyes performed a quick sweep of the place, and then returned to his guest.

"Here is where I leave you, madam," he said, offering a polite bow. "Please consider everything I've told you. I'll speak with you again later"

Dully, Yoko watched as he left the room, and then as the door was closed and locked behind him, leaving her alone in the cold, dim light that filtered through the grimy windows. She shivered; at least they'd been kind enough to leave her with her coat.

Carefully, she felt her way across the room to the bench and sat down on it. Two worn, thin blankets lay folded at one end; she wrapped both around her shoulders and huddled there, desperately trying to get her head around the situation.

Yangzi - that was a name she hadn't heard in a very long time. She'd never expected anyone other than her father to say it, and to hear it spoken without his soft, lilting accent made her ache for his voice like she hadn't in many, many years.

She shook her head; this was what her captor wanted, for her to become distracted by a combination of guilt and nostalgia, so that she'd give in to…whatever it was he wanted from her. It still wasn't entirely clear.

Yoko took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts.

She was somewhere in Tokyo; the fact that she'd been transported there from Fukuoka meant that she had to have been missing for at least twelve hours, probably longer. She was currently in the custody of a Chinese nationalist who felt that she owed some sort of duty to his community of refugees because her father had been one of their countrymen, and who seemed to have some extent of command over the place. Her cybercomm functions were jammed, which probably extended to her GPS signals as well, and she was locked in a small room beneath a collapsed school building.

At this very moment, hundreds of people were devoting every bit of their energy to tracking her down. She just had to be patient until they succeeded.

She tried to ignore the fear burning in the back of her mind.

_Nobody is going to hurt me at this point; they still want to negotiate. I'm not sure what the goal of this is, but if it was for me to die, it would have happened already._

Slowly, steadily, she repeated this to herself with every breath she took.

Her security team would find a way to her, even without being able to rely on the Net. It was what they were there for. It might take a while longer, but she could survive until then.

_And if they can't, there's always the Major…_

A shiver ran through Yoko's body that had nothing to do with the cold.

The Major…did she even know what had happened? She'd been off somewhere just the other night – what if she was still away on her own business, working within her own little world, completely oblivious?

What if she knew, but didn't care?

Yoko shook the thought away fiercely.

Of course she knew; she was probably fully aware of the situation and working as hard as she could to fix it.

_Because it's her job, though; not because of me._

It was hardly appropriate to expect anything more under these circumstances.

Still, if there was any one person she wanted to be able to contact right now…

With a heavy sigh, Yoko curled up on the bench, leaning her back against the wall. It seemed as though the only thing she could do for the time being was wait.

* * *

><p>I disengaged from the terminal and leaned back in my chair, rubbing my temples with my thumb and forefinger. I'd been diving for nearly eight hours total, with nothing to show for it. I needed a break. After a brief stretch, I got up from my chair and walked out into the hallway.<p>

Why hadn't I just gone to see her when she'd asked?

It would have been easy enough to change my existing plans. My girlfriends were more than used to it.

As if my having been there the night before could have somehow stopped this from happening.

We still hadn't seen any indication that the prime minister's cyberbrain was functioning at all, and as the hours went by with no word from her assailants, it became increasingly likely that she'd already been killed.

She had called me, lonely and wanting company, and I'd disappointed her.

Angrily, I turned and stormed off toward the main office. This was getting ridiculous; I needed something to do that would actually keep me occupied.

The room was empty except for Batou, reclining in his seat with his boots resting on the surface of his desk. He turned around as I entered.

"Did you catch something?"

I shook my head.

"Not a thing. Where is everyone?"

"Paz took Borma and Azuma to go intimidate some of the black market dealers and weapons traders operating in this area and see if any of them heard anything about a large group mustering supplies. Togusa and the Chief are working on getting our international neighbors to drop us some intel regarding the physical evidence we found at the scene, and I have no idea where Saito went off to." He yawned. "I'm holding down the fort in the meantime."

"I see. Have you had any luck so far gaining access to alternate DNA records?"

Batou shrugged. "The Russian foreign affairs office was pretty helpful, not that it really got us anywhere….the Chinese are proving to be a lot more difficult, though."

"Figures."

I sat down on the desk in front of Batou's. It had once been mine, not that I'd ever really used it for anything; I wondered whose space it was now.

"Hey, Major…"

"Hmm?"

I hadn't looked up; I was running my fingers absently over the surface of the desk.

"Well…it might be nothing, but…you're acting like you've got some kind of personal investment in this case."

Leave it to Batou to pick up on my every emotional fluctuation from the moment I set foot in the building.

"The prime minister up and disappeared…that's kind of a big deal, don't you think?" I said noncommittally, tracing an endless figure-eight over the glossy surface of the wood.

"Yeah, but…I dunno, when this kind of thing's happened in the past, you've generally been a bit more gung-ho about it. Right now…"

He trailed off into an uncomfortable silence, and when I looked up at him, his eyes met mine with an expression of concern. I sighed heavily.

"The prime minister's been a personal client of mine for the last year and some, if you really want to know. She hires me for protection; I guess I just feel a little responsible for this is all."

"Mmm."

He knew that that wasn't anything close to the entire story, but he also knew me well enough to know that I wasn't going to give him anything else.

"So," I said, "I came up here to ask if there was anything this side of the investigation needed my help with, but it doesn't look like you're up to much either."

"Nope," said Batou, leaning back in his chair again. "Just waiting until we get some more information to work with. You're probably better off going back into the Net for the time being."

"I think I will, then," I said, getting to my feet.

So much for keeping occupied.

I was about to go back into the hallway when I heard a door close in the lounge area below, and then the uneven pad of someone maneuvering their way up the stairs. I turned around at once.

"Ah; there you are, Major."

It was the Chief, and he looked more frustrated than usual.

"Any luck negotiating with China?" said Batou.

The Chief shook his head. "Apparently the rights of their citizens take priority over the resolution of a serious international crisis."

He let out a deep breath, and then turned to me.

"Major, I wouldn't ask this unless I had no other options available, but-"

"You want me to dive their records." I finished.

"Exactly. More importantly, I want you to dive their records without being seen, and I want you to find something that we can use to get this case moving forward. I don't like how long we've been sitting here treading water."

Me either.

"Well, it's not the first time I've done something illegal for you. Give me four hours," I said. "I'm going back to my place, too – it'll be easier to cover my tracks if I'm not using Section 9's equipment to make the dive."

"That's fine. I'll have the crime lab transfer the DNA information they recovered into your shared memory."

"Great. Four hours; I'll call you and let you know what turns up."

"I'll be waiting."

I pushed through the doors into the hallway, and then fairly sprinted down to the parking deck.

Somehow, even though I hadn't even done anything yet, it felt as though I was finally moving in the right direction. Something was waiting for me to uncover it; I could feel it. I just needed the time to find out what it was.

_I'm sorry, Yoko. I'll have to keep you waiting just a little while longer._

* * *

><p>(AN: Sorry for the delay with this chapter, guys! I had a few huge dialogue snarls to untangle, and then I had the flu for about a week. Anyway, it's up now! Enjoy!)


	4. Chapter 4

I hung suspended in the sea of information, drifting slightly in the current that rushed dizzily around me. The Chinese government's internal Net spread out across my field of view; an enormous, impenetrable maze of light and static, crawling with randomly alternating attack barriers.

If I hadn't been sitting there attempting to infiltrate the thing, I probably would have spent quite a bit of time admiring it.

Not that it had been waiting out in the open for just anybody to come and gawk at how complex it was; it had taken me a good deal of time just to find a path, tracing through hidden connections and backdoors left ajar by other ambitious hackers. Hopefully all of this effort would be worth something.

An alert sounded inside my cyberbrain; the program I'd deployed to work out the encryption pattern on the outermost layer of attack barriers had finished running, and I had a window for the next five minutes, until the encryption changed again. Time to get going.

_Okay, here's the plan; we scoop up as much information as we can, and then we leave. Three of you are going to stay at the main gate and watch the local Net for activity. The other two are going to come along and back me up. Got it?_

_Yes, ma'am!_

I'd borrowed five tachikomas for AI support; though I'd decided to make the dive with my own setup for added security, even I wasn't about to try this solo.

_Good. Sensory masks activated; here we go._

I pushed forward, melting through the wall of the maze. The pressure was so intense that I actually had to wait a few microseconds for my cyberbrain to stabilize.

_Everyone all right?_

_Ready and waiting, Major!_

_Gosh, look at these barriers…I don't think we've ever been anywhere like this before!_

_I know, right? Just think of all the experience we're gaining!_

Perhaps taking the increased risk and performing the dive at Section 9 with Ishikawa to watch my back would have been the better option after all.

_Chatter all you like, but if anything sneaks up on us because you two weren't paying attention, I'm going to personally dismantle the both of you._

_Eek!_

_Y-yes ma'am!_

After taking another brief moment to get my bearings, aware every second of my rapidly diminishing window of time, I set off for the Chinese government's census records, feeling my way through the narrow walls that surrounded me.

The database structure was infuriating to maneuver; sections would jump and shudder before my eyes, or turn cloudy and vanish altogether before reappearing again. This was probably for added security – I'd encountered Nets before that, while certainly accessible to a particular class of hacker, would only come into proper focus if the user had the correct authorization matrix in their cyberbrain. This wasn't something that I could create or work out through code; to access it I'd have to go to mainland China, infiltrate the server complex, and then enter the database through the cyberbrain of one of the staff members there, and unfortunately time was short.

I arrived at what I'd thought was the correct set of coordinates after an entire minute and a half of navigating the maze, only to find nothing but more translucent wall, shivering in and out of my sight in complicated patterns.

_What the…? _

Was this just another part of their security system? It seemed unlikely that the information could hidden entirely, even from someone without the proper clearance; garbled and heavily encrypted, perhaps, but not completely inaccessible.

Maybe I just needed to do a little digging.

_Tachikomas; stand by for data recovery. If someone or something spots us, pull me out immediately – our secrecy takes top priority._

_Roger!_

I checked that my sensory mask was still functioning and then cautiously released the search program I'd written.

For several moments nothing happened at all. I stood foolishly in the middle of the maze, one hand outstretched.

Then, slowly, scraps of data, appearing to my eyes as brilliant chains of light, began to peel away from the walls and floor around me, spooling themselves into the palm of my hand.

The information was encoded within the barriers themselves.

I watched, transfixed, as it raced toward me, strand by strand. In this form, it would need to be reconstructed before it would be of any use, but that wasn't a problem; as long as I had the pieces, I could put them together.

In the back of my mind, the countdown until the encryption pattern changed continued to tick mercilessly toward zero. It was impossible to tell how much of the total amount of relevant data I'd extracted so far, and I was attracting so many threads of it that I felt as though I was standing in the middle of a brilliant storm.

Twenty seconds left.

The chains continued to spin themselves out of the maze walls. I didn't dare pull away for fear of losing something vital.

I was frozen there in the middle of their dizzy whirl of light.

Ten seconds.

Too much light now. A vast wall of it, blank white and icy cold, bearing down on me.

Five seconds.

I tried to pull my hand away, but it was stuck, caught in the tangle of data still pouring out of the walls; walls that were rapidly closing in around me.

No time to retreat.

_Major!_

I opened my eyes.

_Major, are you all right?_

I was in my apartment, sitting in front of the massive dive device that took up a good three quarters of my office area. My body was still frozen; I needed a moment to come back to it.

_Yeah; I'm fine._

If I had a pulse, it would have been racing.

_So, how did we do?_

_We managed to get you out before the encryption shift, Major!_

_Nobody's noticed any intrusion, either! It looks like we're all clear!_

_Good. And the data?_

_It's hard to say at this point! It's still heavily fragmented from the storage process!_

_Right! Even though the search entries were accessible as cohesive entities, the files themselves were being stored in separate segments!_

_What a weird security measure; the Chinese government sure isn't making this easy!_

_Uh-huh!_

I sighed, trying to move my body again; the feeling was gradually coming back into my limbs, and I could move my hand enough to manipulate the controls and disconnect myself from the dive equipment.

The entire run had taken me only two hours and forty-nine minutes. Not bad. Now to get to work on making what I'd found presentable.

_Tachikomas, you're dismissed; thanks for your help. Get back to monitoring our dragnet, and don't give Ishikawa too much trouble, okay?_

_Yes, ma'am!_

_Hey, Major! Are you gonna come back to Section 9 now and help us again?_

_In a bit; I've got some jigsaw puzzles to assemble first._

* * *

><p>The team was assembled in the briefing room again, just as we had been a little more than eight hours ago.<p>

The only difference was that I now stood at the head of the room instead of at the rear, and every eye in it was on me.

"Due to the difficulty in obtaining census information from the Chinese government, the records I managed to recover are somewhat incomplete, but here's what I've pieced together based on the DNA data recovered from the crime scene."

The profiles of twelve men appeared on the screen behind me.

"More than half of our suspects resided in China's Yunnan province until sometime in the year 2024; all are marked as having immigrated to Japan as refugees, and their current whereabouts are unknown. None of them are listed as cyberized, although this obviously could have changed in the last decade. I was able to find facial data on two of them, but so far there's been no match on either man in any domestic databases."

The silence when I finished speaking was deafening.

"And?" said Batou at last, leaning forward onto the table. "It was a group of refugees who came from the same place and who could be based anywhere in the country now. No offense, Major, but this isn't really much more to go on."

"I know," I said.

"So what are we supposed to do, then?" said Azuma. "Go hunting through each of the refugee districts until we find these people?"

I turned my eyes toward him. "That's exactly what we're supposed to do."

The matrix of profiles on the screen disappeared, a large map taking its place.

"We'll start by focusing on the largest residential areas. Each team is to push local sources for information; if any solid leads turn up, report them back to headquarters and we'll make any further decisions from there.

"Batou, Saito, and Azuma; you three will head out to Nagasaki. It's the closest zone to the scene of the crime, and it's very likely that some of the perpetrators may be sheltering there. Paz and Borma, I want you to stay here and investigate the Niihama zone. I'll be taking on the Kanto zone."

"What, by yourself?" said Batou.

I nodded. "I'm just going to visit a few contacts I have in that area; they might know more about this group. At this point it's best to focus our resources on the zones closer to Fukuoka. If nothing turns up there, we can expand the search and pull more people out to Tokyo."

My eyes made a quick circuit of the room.

"I don't think anyone here needs to be reminded of just how important this case is. Take all necessary precautions, and stay in constant contact. Now, let's go!"

* * *

><p>Yoko lay on her side on the hard wooden bench; she'd curled up inside her coat in an attempt to conserve body heat, but the cold had still managed to wrap itself around her, digging its icy fingers deep into her flesh.<p>

Her only indication of the time was the light that came in through the two tiny windows, crawling slowly across the floor. From the distance it had moved since she had first arrived, she guessed that she'd been here for nearly ten hours.

She was exhausted. Her brain hadn't interpreted her unconsciousness during the trip to Tokyo as sleep, due to the cyberbrain lock; if her estimation of the time was correct, she'd been awake for nearly a full day.

Every time she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, she saw them.

First had been Mr. Komatsu, the man who'd been in the car with her.

It wasn't his specific job to escort her; he'd just happened to be assigned to her on that particular day, in keeping with the shifts that were drawn up at the beginning of each month. Pure luck had placed him with her that night.

She'd sat and watched as the contents of his head splattered against the window.

"Get down, please, ma'am," Mari had said, her tone as gentle and as comforting as always. She was reaching for something on the other side of the vehicle, although it was too dark for Yoko to see what it was.

Then one of the attackers had opened the door, forced her head down, and put a bullet through the back of her skull.

Mari, her sweet, quiet shadow, her constant companion for the last two years. Mari, who had kept her functioning, kept her files organized and her schedule straight, and who could always be counted on for a kind word of encouragement besides.

Yoko wondered if she'd even had any life outside of her occupation. If anything else other than praises and words of thanks from her mistress had ever made her happy.

Two years and she'd never bothered to find out. Never even really told the bioroid just how much she meant to her, other than the common courtesies that she dispensed so frequently that they'd almost become meaningless.

She wondered what Mari had felt as she'd died. Regret, disappointment, futility?

Whatever it was had quickly drained out onto the dashboard with the rest.

That was when Yoko had closed her eyes.

She'd felt the movement of the rear door of the car being hauled open roughly, and then the weight of the man who'd entered. Felt him pull her forward and shove the lock into the plug in the back of her neck.

Then she'd found herself here. Trapped. Waiting for someone to come and save her.

_Major…_

Yoko had already reached for the familiar feel of the connection twice, as if she'd somehow be able to get through if she just tried it again. The static from the jamming signal had stabbed into her brain both times, leaving her dizzy and sapping just a little more of her hope that all of this would eventually sort itself out.

She'd heard it said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results was a sign of madness.

Perhaps that was why they'd left her here, alone in the cold, with only the last several horrific hours of her life for company. They expected to open the door again and find a frozen, broken shell of a woman, too tired and traumatized to do anything other than acquiesce to their demands.

What did they want from her, anyway? Was she supposed to announce the truth of her heritage to the world? Somehow manipulate space and time and fully integrate the Asian refugees into Japanese society, while still keeping them aloof and separate in their own little communities?

And what would happen when she didn't come through on either front?

The image of Mari, bent forward with the muzzle of a gun shoved against the back of her head, flashed into her mind again, and fear jolted her body like an electric current.

_Major…please…_

Including the journey to Tokyo from Fukuoka, Yoko guessed that she'd been missing for nearly a full day. Her heart sank further and further into hopelessness with each second that ticked by.

But she couldn't give up entirely.

The lock rattled, and she looked up; the door swung open to reveal two men, different from the ones who had escorted her to this place earlier that morning, their faces dark against a clouded twilight sky. One of them held his hand out.

"The boss wants to speak with you again. Come with us."

It took Yoko a few tries to unfold her stiff, frozen body and stand, but eventually she managed it, and the men led her back across the school grounds to the shell of the administrative building.

Even through her fear and discomfort, she was curious about exactly what kind of power Mr. Zhang held in this place. It wasn't uncommon for refugee camps to appoint neighborhood leaders, in an attempt to keep some amount of order, but it was unusual for these people to command such an intense level of respect.

She thought of the mania she'd glimpsed in the man's eyes earlier. He'd had at least two people killed just to get to her; he had probably proved to these men already that he was not someone to be crossed, and they obeyed him accordingly.

How on earth had her father ever fallen in with such a person? She'd been small when he had died, and her memories of him were indistinct, but all of them seemed to be of a soft, quiet man whose love for his plants was surpassed only by his love for his wife and daughter. He had not been a man who would associate with a murderer, of that she was sure.

Perhaps this was why he'd left China to begin with.

Things were much livelier in the camp; most of the refugees had returned from whatever work they'd been able to scrounge, and large groups congregated by the fires set in trash cans and oil drums, talking and passing around bottles of alcohol. Heads turned here and there as the two men walked past with their captive between them; aware of the attention, Yoko did her best to walk with her back straight and her head high.

She could at least pretend that she was in control of the situation.

A few more minutes of walking led them once again to Mr. Zhang's sitting room. One of the men remained outside the door while the other ushered Yoko through it, then stood in the corner with his arms folded while she sat down on the sofa.

"So, madam," said Mr. Zhang, peering at his guest over the rims of his glasses, "now that you've had some time to reflect on our little chat, what do you think? Will you admit the truth to the nation, for the sake of both your people and your dear father's memory?"

That voice.

That cloying, arrogant, patronizing _voice_.

What had been dread only a few minutes ago swiftly turned to anger.

"I've done a great deal of reflection," said Yoko, willing herself to remain steady; she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear showing through. "It took some time, but I've come to a resolution regarding your proposal."

She'd adopted the sort of tone in which she'd speak to a particularly repulsive minister or representative, still aware every second of the fact that this man could have her killed if the mood struck him.

"Oh?" said Mr. Zhang. He leaned forward, his hands in his lap. "Let's hear it, then."

"You speak of my duty to my father and to my people," said Yoko, her eyes narrowing. "However, the fact remains that my father left China and relocated to Japan. He began a new life for himself here. He found work, married, and started a family, all under the Japanese name he'd taken for himself. This was the name he passed on to me, the name I've used my entire life.

"My people are the ones who make up the country in which I was born and raised, the ones who voted into office the body of representatives that elected me their prime minister, and who have kept me in that position for the last five years. The fact that my father was Chinese is irrelevant; he may have been born there and worked there for many years, but he _lived_ as a citizen of Japan.

"You and your followers are not my people, or my father's people. I owe you _nothing_."

Her words rang in the empty silence that followed. Mr. Zhang simply stared at her, his lips pressed together tightly in a thin line. Yoko met his eyes with her own icy gaze, although her hands were trembling.

Suddenly, Mr. Zhang's face split into a smile.

"Oh, your father would have been so _very_ proud of you. Shun?"

The man standing behind the sofa stepped forward.

"Yes, sir?"

Mr. Zhang's smile faded slightly.

"Send it."


	5. Chapter 5

(A/N: I decided I didn't like the last bit of the last chapter after all, so I moved it to the beginning of this chapter and changed it a lot; sorry for the deja-vu, everyone!)

* * *

><p>I walked down the dusty street, moving quickly toward the nearest cluster of lights and noise; the sun was setting, and Tokyo was not somewhere you wanted to be alone and outside after dark, at least not these days.<p>

Not that I was too worried for my own safety, but drawing attention to myself by disabling a gang of prosthetic body poachers would have been something of an inconvenience, especially considering my mission.

I was headed for Ogikubo; it had been a few years since my last visit, but I was fairly sure that the friends I'd made there would remember me. Most people did.

I'd just stopped in front of a grungy-looking bar to try and get my bearings when a blip appeared on the map inside my cyberbrain. A blip that I'd been half-terrified I'd never see again.

Yoko.

_Yoko!_

The connection disappeared before I received any response, but not without leaving me a very plain set of coordinates to follow.

She was here. Less than an hour away from me.

I broke into a run.

* * *

><p><em>Yoko!<em>

Her heart leapt at the familiar voice.

_Major…?_

Static filled her cyberbrain again as she fumbled for the connection, and she jerked away from it in shock; had the Major really managed to break through, or had Yoko just imagined it?

Suddenly, the office door slammed open.

* * *

><p><em>Chief! I've got the prime minister's location. I'm sending you the coordinates - I can be there in about thirty-five minutes.<em>

My boots pounded against the frozen earth. There was a building in my way; I sprang into the air, launching myself onto its roof.

_We saw it as well. I've just given orders for the Kanto riot police to mobilize; they'll be at the scene no more than ten minutes after you arrive._

I climbed up onto the ruins of an AC unit, and from there propelled myself onto the top of an apartment block. Once my footing was secure, I opened another cybercomm channel.

_Ishikawa, give me all of the satellite data you can pull from the coordinates where the prime minister was last recorded._

_Already on it. And about that…_

_What is it?_

I hauled my body over a railing and dropped to the ground, skirting the treacherous ruins of a bombed out shopping strip.

_Well, when the prime minister's GPS signal showed up for that split second…we picked something up in the dragnet as well._

_And?_

_You're probably going to want to see this for yourself._

A file appeared in my cyberbrain. I hopped up onto the relative safety of an apartment balcony, and then closed my eyes.

It was a personal data file, the same as I saw regularly in the MHLW records. The accompanying picture was of a man who appeared to be in his mid-40's, with deeply tanned skin and jet black hair, graying at the temples. According to the file, his name was Shen Mao, and he had come to Japan late last century, in January of 1987. His place of birth was Baoshan in Yunnan province, China.

Yunnan. The same place all of the refugee men whose DNA we'd recovered had been from.

I scrolled quickly through the rest of the file. The man had allegedly had extensive mob ties when he lived in China, although he'd garnered no criminal record whatsoever as a Japanese citizen; his listed occupation was "florist", which was about the least mob-like thing I could think of. In April of 1987 he'd gotten married to a nurse named Miho Kobayashi, and by March of 1988 they were peacefully settled in a town called Uchiko, not too far from Niihama, with their newborn daughter.

_Did you know that I was half Chinese up until three years ago?_

The memory of the prime minister's voice drifted through my head.

At the end of the file was the man's death record. The name listed here wasn't the same as the one he'd come to Japan with, and even though there was every possibility that the record had been made up to be a hoax, I didn't doubt it for a second.

His daughter looked far too much like him for it not to be true.

_Shou Kayabuki, killed overseas in 1996. Survived by wife Miho and daughter Yoko._

Everything clicked into place.

A mobilized group of Chinese refugees. A personal score to settle.

I took off again, pushing my prosthetic body to its limits as I raced across the barren cityscape.

_Ishikawa, do you have the satellite data for me yet?_

_I'm sending it right now. They've got the place covered by a wide-area jamming signal, but according to past records it used to be an elementary school. I might be able to find the floor plan for you if I dig._

_Thanks. That other file, has anybody else seen it?_

_Uh…just you and me, and the tachikomas that found it…oh, and I sent a copy to the Chief._

Well, that was manageable.

_Delete it as soon as the Chief looks at it. I want you to root it out of the memories of the tachikomas as well._

He was hesitant, but we had worked together long enough that he didn't question the order.

The information in that file had been kept hidden for a reason, after all. It wasn't our secret to keep.

* * *

><p>"Yaozu?" said Mr. Zhang, his sharp eyes immediately finding those of the man who had entered the room. "What's going on?"<p>

"The message, sir. We're not getting through."

Yoko wondered what he meant. Had they attempted to release her hidden past out onto the Net, and if so, what had stopped it?

"You're sure?" said Mr. Zhang. "Perhaps it's still working its way through the local Net."

"No, sir," said Yaozu, now sounding rather nervous. "I tracked it out onto the main Japanese news Net, but then it was like…something pulled it out of sight. It never even had a chance to spread."

"Hmm."

Mr. Zhang's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I underestimated your cowardice, Prime Minister," he said. "It's one thing to destroy the evidence of your heritage, but to have a system built into the Net that prevents anyone else from spreading the same information? I don't know whether to be impressed or disgusted."

His expression was certainly one of disgust.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Yoko quietly. "If such a system is in place, this is the first I've heard of it."

Mr. Zhang studied her very intently for a few moments; she returned his gaze, determined not to waver.

"I see," he said at last, the softness of his voice sending a sudden chill down Yoko's spine. "Once more, then, Yaozu," he said, turning toward the other man. "We'll take the lady at her word and see if this wasn't just some sort of accident; such things do happen, after all. Go and try to send it again, and if you really can't get through, well…we'll continue from there."

"Yes, sir."

He turned and left the room. Mr. Zhang's eyes followed him through the door, and then snapped back to Yoko.

"I intended to have you sent back to Fukuoka once I released my message; however, it's beginning to look as though I'll need you to deliver it for me."

He paused briefly and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose before continuing.

"While I don't doubt that you're trustworthy enough to take care of such a simple matter on your own initiative, I think it would be best for us to apply some gentle _pressure_ first, just to make sure you're taking the situation seriously."

Yoko let the words wash over her without really understanding them. All she wanted was for this nightmare to go ahead and end.

"You should consider yourself lucky that I'm going so easy on you – in my line of work, the punishment for a betrayal of this magnitude is usually far more severe. Of course, if my instructions aren't carried out once you return…who's to say what might happen?"

Gradually, it sank in. They were going to hurt her, and if she didn't do what they wanted, they would come after her again and do something even worse.

She considered her options. Nothing was restraining her physically; if it came down to it, she was perfectly capable of running away.

To where, though? Mr. Zhang had at least five men that she'd seen standing guard around the building, all of whom were much larger, stronger, and better armed than she was. Even if she somehow managed to make it past them, she'd still be stranded in the Kanto refugee residential zone, at night, in the dead of winter.

A dull sense of resignation settled across her mind.

She expected the fear, the dread she'd felt earlier to accompany it, but it was oddly absent; instead she seemed to be sinking into a strange, meditative calm.

Mr. Zhang's plan required her survival. He would not kill her; his goal was merely to make things very unpleasant for her until she gave in to what he wanted.

After the day she'd already had, how much worse could it get?

She would survive this. No matter what happened, she would not give her captors the satisfaction of seeing her broken, fearful, and in pain.

There would be a time for that once all of this was over.

The office door opened again, and the man named Yaozu entered once more.

"Well?" said Mr. Zhang expectantly.

The man shook his head.

* * *

><p>The static from the jamming signal tore into my cyberbrain the minute I vaulted over the fence, and once I touched down, I had to stop and switch over to autistic mode before the pins-and-needles feeling made my braincase collapse in on itself. As Ishikawa had told me earlier, I was standing in the yard of a long-abandoned school. The space was crowded with refugee tents and shelters, but I wasn't concerned with them; my entire being was focused on the map in my cyberbrain, and the tiny dot that pulsed a warmer red the closer I got to it.<p>

She'd shown up again only a moment ago and then disappeared once more, so quickly that I wasn't able to establish a connection. She hadn't tried to contact me either, nor had she moved at all; I dearly hoped that there was an explanation for this that involved her still being alive.

The Kanto PD hadn't showed up yet, and the jamming signal effectively cut me off from all communication. From here on out I would be on my own.

I raced toward my target, cutting silently through the snow. The high wall of a building loomed in front of me, the one segment of the school that hadn't collapsed yet. As I drew closer, I saw two men standing on either side of the entrance, which was merely a gap in the wall covered by a sheet of heavy plastic.

Although I was fairly sure they weren't professional soldiers, they were certainly used to combat; instead of asking me who I was and where I thought I was going, they both drew handguns from their coat pockets with impressive speed.

I was still faster.

Before either man had a chance to fire, I leapt into the air.

Neither of them were cyborgs; that much was obvious from their reactions.

I landed behind the man on the right, clamping my arms firmly around his neck; he struggled briefly, and then went limp as the supply of oxygen to his brain gave out. The other man had only just gotten around to pointing his gun at me.

_Definitely_ not professionals, either.

I sprang forward again, ducking underneath the two shots he fired, focusing all of my momentum into the point of my shoulder, which I rammed into his stomach. Winded, he staggered backwards; while he was still stunned, I spun him around, hooking one elbow around his throat.

The back of his neck was bare; he wasn't even cyberized. I was going to have to do this the old fashioned way.

"You people have the prime minister?" I growled.

He said nothing; his fingers scrabbled against the camo fabric that covered my forearm, trying desperately to dislodge it. I brought my other arm around to his front, pressing down on his windpipe.

"She's here, isn't she?"

It took him another few moments of fighting to answer me with the smallest of nods.

"And she's still alive?"

Another nod.

"Lucky you."

I pressed my thumb against his jugular, and only ten seconds later, he was on the ground with his companion.

As I got to my feet, I gave my surroundings a quick check; nobody else seemed to have noticed the commotion. Quietly, I darted beneath the sheet of plastic and into the building, drawing my sidearm from my hip holster.

It was dark; the only light came from what appeared to be an electric lantern somewhere off in the distance.

I ran lightly toward it, staying close to the corridor wall, my gun at the ready.

The passageway opened up into a large atrium with a high ceiling. There was a shorter hallway and a door at the far end; beyond that was my target.

Between myself and the door were three men; two held automatic pistols, and the third cradled a heavy SMG in the crook of his arm.

The man closest to me raised his gun, pointing it squarely at my chest.

"You have some business here?"

"Yes," I said, narrowing my eyes. "You have something of mine; I'd like it back."

* * *

><p>Yoko sat completely still as Yaozu approached her, eyes fixed blankly on one of the cracks in the plaster on the far wall.<p>

"I'd prefer scared to damaged, if possible," said Mr. Zhang.

"And if it's not possible?" said Yaozu.

He grasped the lapel of Yoko's jacket in one hand, pulling her roughly to her feet.

"Well, just make sure she's still breathing when you're finished."

"Yes, sir."

Suddenly, there was a burst of gunfire from the other side of the door.

"What on earth-?" said Mr. Zhang, rising unsteadily from his seat.

"Jianyu's rifle – I think someone finally showed up for our guest," said Yaozu. He grabbed a handful of Yoko's hair; tears formed at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back. Her heart beat wildly in her chest.

_Major!_

There was another sharp spurt of fire from the rifle, then a rapid staccato of single shots, and then silence.

"Sounds like the fun's over already," said Yaozu, forcing Yoko's head back so that her eyes were pointing at his. "I hope it wasn't anyone you cared about."

Their faces flashed before her eyes once more; first Mr. Komatsu, and then Mari.

A roaring sound filled her ears, pounding through her veins.

Her eyes narrowed.

She was too tired, too unsteady to try to move. Instead, she spat full in the man's face.

He stared at her for a moment, a mixture of confusion and revulsion twisting his features, and then drew back his hand to strike her. She kept her eyes on his, waiting for the blow.

Just when he was about to move, something beyond her shoulder caught his attention.

Then his head exploded.

Yoko's vision swam, clouding with black at the edges.

Blood. Far too much blood.

She could feel it on her; dripping down her face, gluing her hair to her scalp.

The hand that had grasped her jacket clenched suddenly, pulling her forward as its owner crumpled to the ground, and she struggled desperately to escape it, to escape the blood…

Something hard struck the side of her head, and then everything went dark.

* * *

><p>"Yoko!"<p>

I sprinted into the room, over the corpse of the man who'd been holding her. My gun had been loaded with high-speed armor-piercing shells, and they had not been at all kind to his face.

The older man on the other side of the room was in about the same shape, and the less said about the three I'd left in the atrium, or at least what was left of them, the better.

Yoko was sprawled face-down on the floor, wedged in between the sofa and the low table. I felt along the length of her neck and spine for injuries, and then gently rolled her onto her back. She groaned softly, her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to open them.

It was as if all of the tension in my body had melted at once, blossoming into an indescribable feeling of relief. I had never thought I'd be so happy to feel her pulse throbbing beneath my fingers, or the ragged warmth of her breath on the back of my hand.

"Major…"

She blinked rapidly, trying to focus her eyes. She was in awful condition; her skin was pale, and there were deep, bruise-colored circles beneath her eyes. Her lips were rough and chapped from the cold, and her face and hair were splattered with blood.

"I'm right here," I said, taking her hand in mine. "Can you walk? We need to get somewhere safe – there's a group coming to pick us up."

"I don't…I don't know, I don't…"

She tried to sit up, but she was shaking so badly that I knew she'd never be able to stand, let alone move.

"It's okay," I said. "Just hold still for a moment."

I gathered her into my arms, lifting her in one smooth motion, and then hurried outside as quickly as I could.

There was still no sign of the riot squad the chief had sent, although the snow was falling so thickly that I could barely see the refugee camp five meters away; I needed to get out of the jamming zone and find out what was going on.

Aware every second of the soft weight pressing herself against my chest, I ran for the fence and leapt over it again. From there I jumped up onto the roof of another building that still stood on the other side of the narrow street; it was more exposed than I would have liked, but its height meant that we were still relatively safe.

As soon as I was clear of the static, I reached out for the cybercomm channel that would connect me to the area police.

_This is Major Kusanagi of Section 9; the prime minister is in my custody at these coordinates. Requesting status report and ETA of backup._

_One moment, please._

The link went temporarily blank as the android transferred me to her commander.

_This is Kanto PD squad four; arrival in two minutes. Hold your current position._

_Understood._

I let go of the channel, and then turned my attention back to Yoko. She shook fiercely; her head was tucked against my shoulder, and she had wrapped both arms around my neck, pulling her body as close to mine as she could.

I wanted nothing more than to hold her for as long as she needed, to give her whatever warmth she could draw from my body, until she felt safe again. If it had been my own team that was just two minutes away, they probably would have found me with my arms just as tight around her shoulders as hers were around mine right now.

Unfortunately, I was waiting on a group of anonymous police officers, and this was not something that any of them needed to see.

As delicately as I could, I wedged my hand between our bodies, pressing my palm against her shoulder, pushing her away. It took her a moment to realize what I was doing; a pitiful cry escaped her, and her fingers tightened desperately in the fabric of my combat jacket.

"Hey," I whispered, taking her face in my hands. "I _know_. But the police will be here any minute, and I need you to be the prime minister for the time being, all right?"

Her grip on my jacket loosened slightly.

"You're…going to stay with me…aren't you?"

"For as long as I can, yes."

She nodded slowly, and then began to disentangle herself from me.

I couldn't look her in the eye; I knew that if I did, I'd want to embrace her all over again. For now I would have to be content with the knowledge that she was here with me, alive and relatively unharmed.

Slightly less than a minute and a half later, the sound of a chopper's propellers cut through the snow, accompanied by the harsh glare of its landing lights. The prime minister was a little steadier now, and I helped her to stand, pulling her to the side so the craft would have space to set down. The hatch opened, and a man in a police uniform stepped out.

"There's a team investigating the other site, ma'am. We'll get you back to base; a JSDF unit is on its way to transport you to Fukuoka."

He was addressing the prime minister, but she didn't seem to be listening to him; she was wavering back and forth, clinging to my arm for support.

"Thank you," I said. "I'll make contact with my team when we arrive; this way, madam."

I helped the prime minister aboard the chopper, sitting her down on the bench against the wall and then situating myself beside her. The officer who'd met us on the ground fussed over her for a little while, asking if she was injured (she shook her head), did she need anything (she answered with only a feeble request for water), and was she comfortable (she nodded once, and then closed her eyes.)

"Before I go back up front, ma'am, did you want something to take care of the…well…?"

He moved his hand awkwardly in front of his eyes; I guessed that he was referring to the half-dried blood that still covered a decent amount of the prime minister's face.

"I'll get it," I said, fixing him with a look that clearly said it was time to leave the poor woman alone already. He nodded quickly and disappeared behind the partition that separated the cockpit from the cargo area.

Once he was out of sight, I retrieved a small towel from the first-aid kit beneath the bench, poured a little water on it, and began to dab gently at the bloodstains. They were stubborn, but I'd managed to clear away the worst of the mess by the time we landed. The officer escorting us opened the hatch; I took the prime minister's arm once more and guided her out onto the tarmac, toward the JSDF tilt-rotor that waited there.

The prime minister's security personnel were well represented among those on the ground; they rushed toward her the moment they saw her. I loosened my grip on her arm.

"Well, I guess my job here is done," I murmured.

She nodded resignedly, her eyes on the advancing group of black suits.

"I'll come and see you as soon as I can. Take care."

She nodded again, and then stepped forward to greet her staff. I watched as they began to lead her away.

"Wait," she said softly; the entire group paused as she turned to face me.

"Major Kusanagi?"

I bowed politely, as was expected of me.

"Ma'am?"

Her clouded eyes brightened, and a weary smile appeared on her face.

"Thank you."

I nodded shortly.

"You're welcome."

The prime minister turned around again and was immediately swallowed up by her entourage.

When I could no longer see her, I opened up a cybercomm channel.

_Hey, Chief, it's me. The prime minister's back with her security people; they're taking her home right now. She's pretty shaken up, and she'll probably need some time to recover, but she's not hurt._

_Excellent work. And the group that abducted her?_

_Neutralized, for the most part; the Kanto PD are still cleaning up the mess. I'll make a full report once I get back._

_I'll be waiting._

_Yup. See you._

I closed the channel, and then sighed heavily. Nobody had thought to offer me a ride, and the train station was still some distance away.

After taking a moment to work out my position, I took off into the night, leaving flurries of snow in my wake.


	6. Chapter 6

Four days after the initial incident had occurred, I was back in my car, headed for Fukuoka again. The city lay spread out before me, its glow radiating upward into the night sky.

I hadn't spoken to the prime minister at all since I'd separated from her in Tokyo. She had been in the hospital for a couple of days, to allow for a full assessment of her condition, and she was now on indefinite leave at home, all supposedly due to a sudden illness.

Only those who had been directly involved knew that she'd even been missing; all evidence of the attack had been skillfully obliterated, and the majority of the Japanese government, let alone the general public, remained blissfully unaware.

I left my car across the street from the prime minister's residence, then snuck in over the fence as I usually did, activating my camouflage before any of the guards or cameras caught sight of me. The whole thing was a familiar routine by now; I sprinted across the grounds to a small door at the rear of the building, and then traced the familiar path through the dimly-lit hallways, to the little section of the building where the prime minister actually lived.

Her door was locked. I leaned against the wall.

_Yoko?_

The response was vague and confused; she must've been sleeping.

…_? _

_Sorry I woke you; come open the door, all right?_

…_!_

She broke off the connection at once. Less than thirty seconds later, the door swung open, and there she was, standing in front of me in her nightclothes.

I followed her into the hallway, and she closed and locked the door behind me, then waited quietly as I removed my boots. Once I'd tucked them neatly against the wall, I turned toward her again; the smile she gave me was stiff and mechanical, and she was only able to hold it for a moment before her lips began to tremble. The rapid movement of her eyes reminded me of a prey animal watching its surroundings, ready to flee at a moment's notice.

I held my arms out to her, and she walked into them without hesitating, resting her chin on my shoulder.

Her heart beat steadily against my chest, warm and vibrantly alive.

"C'mon," I said. "I'll get you back to bed."

For the second time in a week, I lifted the Prime Minister of Japan into my arms. She was so light that it was nothing to carry her down the rest of the hallway and into her room; once I'd settled her on the bed, I slid under the covers beside her, my arm assuming its usual position across her waist as it had done dozens of times before.

It was such a simple action, and yet I was sure that I'd never take it for granted again.

She pressed her body into mine, and then let out a heavy sigh.

"Thank you…for coming here…."

Her voice was frail and brittle-sounding, and my arm seemed to move on its own as it tightened around her.

"I figured I'd kept you waiting long enough."

I felt her nod shortly, her forehead brushing against my chest.

She was usually quiet, but this was different. Part of me wanted to ask if she was all right, but it would have been nothing more than a social formality; I was the one who'd found her there, frozen and dull-eyed and covered in blood. I knew.

The tips of my fingers ran up and down the length of her back.

"I'll spend the night, if you just want to go back to sleep," I said. "Although…if you feel like talking, I'm up for that too."

She nodded again.

"I have someone now, you know… a professional that I'm supposed to talk to about…all of this…"

She was shaking; I continued to trace methodically along her spine.

"Oh?" I said. "D'you think that's going to help you at all?"

"I don't know…" she whispered, and then heaved another enormous sigh. "I just want it to go away...Everything, I want it to go away…"

Her eyes flickered upwards to meet mine.

"I thought it was my secret…that nobody knew, that I could control it….I thought that even if it did get out, it would just be something small…something somebody might turn into a stupid, petty talking point…and now six people are dead because of it…" She took a deep breath. "Five families who deserve the truth from me, but who won't get it because none of this ever even happened in the first place…and then Mari…."

Her shoulders began to tremble again, and I rested my hand between them, trying to quiet her.

"You're not really blaming yourself for this, are you?" I murmured. "It wasn't-"

"It wasn't my fault," she finished, her voice shaking. "There's nothing I could have done. I know that, everyone's made such an effort to remind me over and over again...but it's all so much more complicated than anyone understands…"

I ran my fingertips in slow circles over her back, at the same time reviewing what I knew of the case in my head. There were parts that _I_ didn't understand; a refugee gang leader had gone to considerable trouble and (assumedly) expense to capture the prime minister, just to throw a file out into the net revealing that her father had been born in China. If that had been his goal all along, why was the kidnapping necessary? Wouldn't it have made more sense to just leak the information and watch the media have a field day with it?

What exactly had gone on during the day between the attack and the time the file showed up?

The only one who'd been there and lived to tell about it was right in front of me.

I took her hand in mine.

"I want to try something, all right?"

She nodded slowly; although I could see the confusion in her eyes, she trusted me. I reached up and withdrew a cable from the back of my neck.

"I'm going to link up with you – try and relax as much as you can."

A small shiver crossed her body as she nodded again, closing her eyes. I slid my hand underneath her hair and made the connection, pressing gently against her barrier, waiting for her. She took a deep breath, and then, all at once, I was through.

Her emotions crashed into me a second later.

Guilt, mostly. A sick, all-consuming guilt that swirled around her mind in thick, noxious clouds, making it nearly unrecognizable. Bright flashes of vivid fear erupted here and there, striking without warning. When I reached out to her ghost, I felt it as something small and soft, wanting only a corner to curl up in where nothing would ever touch it again. I took it into my hands, pulling it close against my chest; in the physical world, I had drawn her in towards my body, so close that I could feel her breath through the fabric of my shirt.

The dark clouds that filled her head shifted and tore into one another, revealing the vague, disconnected images hidden inside them. Her ghost bumped tentatively against mine, wanting to deepen the link but lacking the strength to do it herself.

_Make it stop. Make it go away._

I felt her voice, the plaintive whimper of a child, rather than heard it, and I pressed myself fully into the link, into the dizzying, fearful uncertainty.

_Show me. Start at the beginning…show me everything…_

There was a moment of hesitation, and then, suddenly, decisive clarity.

The clouds swept themselves aside, and I found myself standing in a fog of light and soft color.

It was a street that I knew I'd seen somewhere before, although I couldn't tell whether or not it was from my personal experience or residual nostalgia from Yoko's memories. The scene was reminiscent of the set of a play; the colors of the sky, the plants, and the buildings were bright and exaggerated, and everything up to the horizon seemed flat and two-dimensional, like a painted backdrop. Even the sounds of summer – the chirping of cicadas interspersed with the occasional fluttering of wind chimes – seemed canned, like a recording. The only thing that was truly in focus was the two people walking along the sidewalk; a middle-aged man in worn, faded work clothes, and the young girl who walked beside him, dressed in a neat school uniform with two glossy black braids trailing down her back.

My vision shifted unpredictably; sometimes I was watching the couple from a few meters away, and sometimes I was the girl herself, gazing up at the man's face from just beneath his shoulder.

I had definitely seen that face before; deeply tanned, kind-eyed, and so very much like his daughter's. He was speaking, but it was difficult to pick out the words or sounds – all that mattered was that it was a voice I loved more than any other on earth.

_Can I come with you?_

The girl's voice was similarly unintelligible, distorted by the vague memories of how she'd sounded then versus the voice I knew now.

Her father smiled and shook his head.

_And leave Mama all by herself? Besides, can you imagine how upset with us she'd be if I made you miss that much school?_

_Oh…_

The girl's expression clouded briefly, and then cleared again.

_But you won't be gone that long, right?_

_I'll be home as soon as I can manage it. Maybe even with Nainai and Yeye, depending on how things go._

_Really?_

_We'll see, although they're so anxious to meet their Yangzi in person that they might just follow me home anyway._

The girl's mind flooded with childish pleasure at the loving endearment of her father's name for her, at the thought of finally seeing the grandparents with whom she'd only ever previously exchanged letters.

Then, suddenly, it was all swept away.

There was no color here. I stood on one side of a kitchen table, across from a woman with a slender figure and a cold, blank, yet undeniably pretty face; I instantly recognized her as my mother. Between us, resting on the worn surface of the table, was an open envelope and a folded sheet of paper.

The woman may or may not have been speaking; I couldn't tell. All I could feel was the single crushing truth that dominated my brain; the father I loved, the kind face and the gentle voice, were not coming back to me.

Somewhere inside that truth, there was a subtle shift in my perception of myself, something that stirred memories inside my own consciousness as well. Memories of a child, cocooned inside her own soft little world for so long, suddenly bursting forth into something…else.

The memory shifted again, this time to a scene far more vivid and detailed; it must have been something that had happened after Yoko had been cyberized. She (there was now a very clear distinction between her memory and my cyberbrain self inside it) sat on a comfortable chair in a small conference room, arms folded across her chest, her eyes moving back and forth between the two men, both sporting lapel pins that designated them as government support staff, who took up the sofa opposite her.

"I'm sure this must be distasteful to you on some level, madam," said the man on the left, adjusting his tie, "but your situation is precarious enough as it is, and the fewer opportunities we leave for media scandal, the better. After all, if it were to become widely known that the first female prime minister of Japan was of Chinese ancestry, especially as things stand in the current international political arena…"

"I understand," said Yoko quietly. "I have no objections – whatever you think is best."

The man on the right made a few notes on a tablet. The image of the little girl and her father, illuminated by the sun, flashed briefly into my mind, and I felt Yoko's throat tighten as she swallowed.

"Now," he said, resting the tablet on his lap, "there are a few other items we wanted to discuss with you before your official nomination…"

He reached into a briefcase for a sheaf of papers. Yoko watched mutely as her life up to that point was vivisected and patched back together into something that would be more appealing to the masses.

Her father's face continued to drift through my brain, accompanied by a sickening feeling of betrayal.

I felt her hesitate again; she had reached something that she didn't want to see. Her shoulders began to tremble, and I touched my lips to her forehead.

_Take your time._

Slowly, with many pauses, jolts, and odd skips, another memory floated up behind my eyes.

Her emotions came first this time; exhaustion, first and foremost, with a noticeable undercurrent of frustrated isolation, tinged with jealousy. The scene assembled itself piece by piece; the rear seat of the car as she yawned and leaned back against it, the glow of the console as she looked toward the dashboard to check the time, and then finally the lights of the city, spread out beyond the guard rail as she turned toward the window to distract herself.

I realized, with a sudden thrill of foreboding, that she was finally showing me the night of the incident.

"I've lost contact with the other car," said Mari softly from the driver's seat. "Attempting to re-establish."

The memory shuddered and skipped again. This was it.

The impact was so sudden and intense that I almost felt it shake the link itself. The images unraveled into a tangled mess of panic as the car accelerated, was struck again, and finally skidded to the side of the road. I couldn't see anything particularly distinct; a trained professional, Yoko had ducked her head down beneath the window to keep out of sight.

Between her panic then and her reluctance to relive the experience now, it was hard to tell what was going on. I heard footsteps and voices outside of the car, and then the sound of the door opening; Yoko raised her head slightly, looking toward the window.

The image froze, shattered, and then pieced itself back together again, and I felt a sudden sense of dread.

There was a single gunshot, and then the thick, heavy sound of blood splattering against the glass. The silhouette of a body fell backward against it a second later - the security officer.

I knew that he'd been killed; I hadn't known that she'd seen it. A feeling of revulsion, entirely separate from what Yoko was feeling inside her memory, twisted itself up inside me - I knew what was coming next.

I could see Mari leaning over from the driver's seat, probably reaching for the gun I'd found in her hand.

"Get down, please, ma'am."

The memory froze again, lingering on the image of her eyes, warm and reassuring.

Suddenly, the door of the car was wrenched aside. A hand reached in and shoved Mari's head forward against the dashboard.

Another shot. Milky white blood painted the front console, dripping down onto the carpet.

She'd seen all of it. I had no idea.

Everything went dark; Yoko had closed her eyes. I felt her there in her own sphere of black, sick and shaking and nearly out of her head with terror; felt the shift in weight as the rear door to the car opened; felt someone pull her forward roughly by the shoulder and plug something into the back of her neck.

From there, the darkness froze. Her cyberbrain had been locked down.

It seemed like only seconds later when a man's voice woke her, although I knew that in reality it had been hours. She opened her eyes again, and I watched as the entire bizarre drama unfolded before me.

A refugee mob boss had kidnapped the daughter of an old associate, who also happened to be the Prime Minister of Japan, in order to lecture her about destroying the evidence of her heritage, a decision that she'd been coerced into making in the first place. It seemed too ridiculous to have actually happened, but here it was.

For this trivial bit of pettiness, he'd forced her to watch two people very close to her die, and then shut her away by herself to deal with it.

I wished that I'd know all of this beforehand. I had dealt with these people far too kindly.

Her memories drifted in front of me in a muddled haze; fear, cold, and frustration, interrupted by vivid flashes of what she'd seen the night before. She lay there helplessly for hours, waiting for someone to come and save her.

Me. She was waiting for me.

I pushed back across the link, blending her memories with my own – my discovery of the car minutes after she'd been taken from it, the hours I'd spent in the Net searching for any sign of her, my raid on the Chinese government's census records, and finally the decision that had brought me out to Tokyo, almost by chance.

As if I'd just known.

The skips and hesitations were less frequent now. She pushed onward, and I watched her second confrontation with the man who held her hostage, an unexpected surge of pride searing through me as I heard her response to his demands; watched him order the dispersal of their file, which in turn had necessitated the temporary disabling of their jamming signal, making it possible for me to track down my target; felt the burst of hope that had shot up in her heart when she'd heard me call out to her. I continued to match my own experiences to what Yoko was showing me, the two of us neatly locking everything into place as we both converged on that single moment where we had finally come together.

Relief. Safety.

I clasped her tightly against my body, holding her the way she'd wanted to be held then, the way I should have held her.

She understood why I'd pushed her away. It was a necessary evil, a part of the game we played, just the same as how the more unsavory aspects of her personal history had been tucked away out of sight.

Not that this helped it to be any more bearable.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, lips brushing her hair as I spoke, my voice trembling in sympathy with her battered consciousness. "I'm so sorry…"

My cyberbrain picked up where I had left off.

_For your father…for Mari…for everyone else… and for making you wait…_

The warmth of a gentle sigh fanned across my shoulder, and I felt her shake her head against the curve of my neck.

"Don't be," she said, the words muffled against my skin. She raised her head slightly.

"You're here now."

Our eyes met, and in that instant an understanding passed between us; an understanding of something that neither of us would ever be able to express to one another in speech. It was as if my determination to turn the earth over to find her had melded with her own certainty that I would be the one to come to her rescue, forming a clear conceptual visualization of our tangled relationship that I was unable to find a word for.

Well, that wasn't quite right; there was a very simple word that probably would have summed it up quite nicely, at least in a very broad sense, but it was still far too unspecific for me to feel comfortable saying it.

She was never going to say it either, and that was fine by me.

"Get some sleep," I murmured. "I'll still be here in the morning."

She nodded, snuggling into the weight of my body; I liked the feel of her, warm and soft in my arms, solidly and reassuringly _there_. Under other circumstances I probably would have found this situation more than a little ridiculous, but here, within this moment, I welcomed it. I wanted to make her feel safe; I wanted to protect her.

After all, who else did she have now?

* * *

><p>It took a while, but gradually, things returned to normal. My pay for this latest job arrived in the usual number of unmarked, anonymous increments, supplemented by the various side projects I took on to keep myself occupied, and Yoko returned to her office and resumed her duties as soon as she felt she was able to maintain her professional façade again. Despite her efforts, more than a few media commentators noted just how stressed and exhausted she looked as of late, and rumors began to fly regarding the supposed illness that had kept her out of the public eye for the last few weeks. In the end it was something to be thankful for; that the cover story was interesting enough that nobody felt any need to try and dig deeper.<p>

Another fabrication for the greater good. Another lie.

I knew now just how difficult it was for Yoko to live this way, having every detail of her public existence micromanaged into oblivion. Part of me pitied her for it, but another, much larger part of me was less generous; she should have been used to it by now. She had to have figured out long ago that politics were no business for honest people.

Still, when she called me and asked if I wouldn't mind getting her away from the office for a few days, I immediately agreed.

_Anywhere in particular you want to go?_

_That all depends on where you feel like taking me._

My first thought had been to bring her back to the place I had on the coast near Fukuoka, the place where we'd gone during that incident that had kick-started this entire affair. It was close enough that her security team might throw slightly less of a fit, and out of the way enough that I could reasonably ensure her safety. Then I remembered that her memories of the place would include being chased through the rain by a GSDF team and getting shot; probably not the best thing to dredge up in her mind, especially after what she'd just been through.

I went back to thinking – if I was a cautious, neurotic, top-ranking government official who needed to escape from her life for a weekend, where would I want my close associate (I aggressively blocked that other word from entering my head) to hide me?

Somewhere safe and enclosed; somewhere that felt like home.

There was my apartment in Niihama, but I'd just moved a few months ago, and it wasn't at all set up for guests. Besides, it was hardly even a home to me – I saw it more as a base of operations, a space to keep all of my things for a while before packing up and moving on to the next location.

Somewhere I'd had for a while, where even I felt at ease; the place I'd hung on to for years, even after it had been compromised and half-destroyed, just because I couldn't bear to let it go.

I smiled and reached for a cybercomm channel.

_Yoko; when can I come pick you up?_

* * *

><p>She slept through most of the drive out to Niihama. This didn't concern me at all; I was quite used to the fact that she napped more or less the way a cat did, which is to say constantly. I didn't really blame her for it either, as the first hour of the trip was basically the same as the other six.<p>

We arrived late in the afternoon, just as the sun began to dip down below the horizon. The gate to the driveway unlocked itself and rolled to the side as I came within range; I guided the car past it, around the turn to the rear deck, and finally into its space between a small mini-van and an older SUV. Once I'd turned the engine off, I leaned over to shake Yoko awake.

A jolt of fear flashed behind her eyes for the briefest of seconds before she recognized me.

"We're here," I said, once she'd come back to herself. She yawned and stepped out of the car, and then looked around, her tired eyes slowly taking in the scenery. I opened the rear door of the car, removed our luggage, and carried it toward the house.

"C'mon – the view's much nicer from inside."

Slowly, she nodded and followed me through the door.

Although I'd been forced to remodel the place significantly in the wake of the incident that had happened several years ago, the layout had remained basically the same – one open, airy room, its different sections partitioned off by stairs and low walls. It was fairly small, as there was only so much room for expansion on the mountainside, but the dark marble interior and relative lack of furniture still made it feel empty and cavernous, which was exactly the way I'd wanted it.

"So this is where you live full-time?" said Yoko, walking forward and stepping down into the lounge, toward the enormous sloped window that made up the far wall. I leaned against the doorframe, folding my arms across my chest.

"Not for a while," I said. "What made you think that?"

"It's just so _you_," said Yoko earnestly, pressing her fingertips against the window as she looked out into the garden, then tracing the pane of glass up to the ceiling with her eyes. "The home of a woman who wants to be left alone, but who wants to be able to see everything around her."

She turned towards me, and I suddenly realized that in bringing her here I'd shown her something very personal.

Perhaps that was what I'd intended all along. I sighed.

"Well, I guess you've got me figured out, then."

Her face fell; that had sounded much harsher than I'd meant it to. I joined her in front of the window, setting one hand on her shoulder.

"You can't really see much from here – let's go out onto the balcony for a little while before it gets dark."

I slid aside the glass door that opened onto the garden, and then led the way up a flight of stairs to the broad stone balcony that hung out over the steep slope.

The early spring air was damp and chilly and not particularly pleasant to linger in, but it was worth it for two reasons; the first was the sight of the sun, a massive, brilliant half-circle resting on the hazy rim of the ocean, its light seemingly setting fire to everything it touched, from the pine forest on the mountain to the silhouette of Niihama off in the distance. The second was the sight of Yoko, leaning out over the wall with her hair blowing around her face, her skin glowing pale bronze in the light, looking, for the first time that I'd seen in a long while, at peace.

As I watched her, it struck me again just how close I'd really come to losing her, and that feeling of unstoppable, protective rage seethed inside me again.

Just as it was going to take her some time to get her life back to normal, it was going to be a while before I could really feel comfortable letting her out of my sight.

The word that I'd been keeping out of my head for the last few weeks slid menacingly toward the front of my mind; I shoved it back before it had time to register.

We spent the rest of the day within an arm's length of each other; never closer than that, but never much further away, either. Even though she was her usual quiet self, the silence wasn't awkward at all – I was more than happy to just sit and listen to the steady rhythm of her breathing. If she wanted more space, or if she wanted me closer, she would let me know.

Very occasionally I'd feel her eyes on me, but whenever I looked up, she'd already turned away, just as she had before.

She only left my side much later in the evening, long after the sun had set, when she decided to go take a bath before she went to bed. It was a while before I saw her again.

I'd gone ahead and dressed for bed myself – normally "undressed" would have been more accurate, but I didn't think it was appropriate under the current circumstances. I sat down on one side of the bed and leaned back against the wall, then closed my eyes and ran one last check on the security system for the night; the house net reported to me that it was functioning fully, and that no suspicious transmissions or signals had emerged in the area.

The moon was up over the trees, its brilliance cascading through the windows overhead. I turned off the floor lamp and sat there, soaking in shaft of light that poured down from above.

To my left, I heard the sound of a door sliding open and turned my head; Yoko emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of warm air, draped in her pink robe, her black hair clinging damply to her face and neck. She froze when she noticed that I was looking at her – I averted my gaze and scooted to one side of the bed to make room.

She padded softly across the carpet and then settled herself on the very edge of the mattress with her back to me. I could almost feel the heat of her body radiating outward, pulling me closer; in the end, however, it was her eyes, soft and questioning as she looked at me over her shoulder, that undid me.

It was always those eyes.

I slid forward and pressed my cheek against the side of her neck; a tense shiver raced down her spine, and the tiny hairs on her arms and shoulders stood on end.

"You all right?" I murmured, wrapping my arms around her waist.

She nodded.

We sat quietly for several minutes more, until she finally broke the silence.

"Motoko…?"

She'd never called me that before.

I didn't dislike it.

"…Yes?"

She pulled forward slightly, as if she wanted room to move; obligingly, I let go of her body. She turned away from me, her shoulders rising gently as she pulled in another deep breath – when she released it, the collar of her robe began to slide slowly down the length of her back.

First one shoulder, and then the other emerged into the open air. Next, she withdrew her arms slowly from the sleeves, letting the fabric gather around her waist, her bare skin gleaming silver in the moonlight.

I sat still behind her, transfixed; for one of the very few times in my life, uncertain.

"…Yoko…"

She bowed her head slightly.

"I want a new secret," she whispered, her voice tight with nerves. "One that's all mine…one that's not going to hurt anyone, because no one's ever going to know about it…except you." Another shiver crossed her body. "That is…as long as you're all right with this…"

As if I could have told her no.

"I'm fine as long as you are," I said softly. "It'll be nice to get out of your head for once."

She looked over her shoulder and gave me such an honest, relieved smile that I couldn't help but return it.

"You'll have to show me what to – I mean, I've never…been with a woman before," she finished awkwardly. "And even…well, _otherwise_…it's been a while…."

"Mmm…"

I was barely listening to her anymore; my attention was focused on the curves of her neck and shoulders, the way the muscles rolled and shifted smoothly beneath her skin. Slowly, I extended one arm, tracing the sharp outline of her shoulder blade with my fingertips. The palm of my hand continued downward, curving around her arm, snaking across her waist again; to my hypersensitive prosthetic body, her skin felt blazing hot, and the sensation was oddly intoxicating.

She was still too shy to turn around – that was all right. I was satisfied with touching rather than seeing for now.

"I'm going to need you to talk to me," I whispered, pulling her back against my chest and resting my chin lightly on her shoulder. "We're not linked – I'm not going to know if I'm hurting you or if you're uncomfortable unless you tell me about it. All right?"

She nodded shortly, and I squeezed her gently around the waist; she felt small and fragile in my arms, like a doll.

I had no idea why so many people evaluated prosthetic operation skill based on output strength – to me, the real test of ability was being delicate enough to handle an organic body without breaking it. I supposed that I'd just gotten good enough at this over the years that no one ever really gave it much thought; even my two girls at home, for whom the initial attraction had been my body, tended to shrug off the fact that I was strong enough to snap a grown man's neck, let alone that I weighed more than both of them combined.

Yoko was aware of this too, but she'd also seen me in action; she knew firsthand what I was capable of. I had no idea whether this appealed to her or was only serving to make her more nervous.

Suddenly I was uncertain again.

"Don't worry," she murmured, placing her hand on top of mine, as if she'd felt my hesitation and known what I was thinking about. "I trust you."

_That_ word melted to the forefront of my mind again, burning itself into my brain.

There was no escaping it this time; the only thing to do was act on it.

I surged forward, pressing a searing kiss into Yoko's shoulder, gradually mouthing my way up her neck until my lips rested just below her jaw, until I could feel her pulse pounding firmly against them. I sucked the tender patch of skin in between my teeth; her chest heaved as she gasped and rocked backwards, leaning against my body, little tremors rippling over the surface of her skin. Gradually, I worked my way down to her shoulder, the tip of my tongue moving between the faint freckles dusted across her upper back.

Tiny, unique imperfections; I wanted to pay special attention to each and every one of them.

Yoko had stopped shaking; she seemed to have finally relaxed into the feeling of me touching her. Time to push things a little further.

Still tracing the back of her neck delicately with my lips, I slid one hand away from her waist, moving it very slowly upward, my splayed fingers curving over the graceful dips and swells of her body, taking in every inch of her skin. She began to tremble again, mostly when I found a particularly sensitive spot (I made careful note of these for future reference), but there was no indication that she wanted me to stop; it was only when my other hand began to move downward, beneath the robe that was still draped across her thighs, that her fingers clamped down hard around my wrist. She remained silent, but as our eyes met, the message was clear.

_Not yet._

And that was fine.

I touched my lips politely to her forehead; her whole face was hot and flushed red. Her bemused embarrassment made me want to kiss her again, so I did – further down this time, on the cheek. I moved in a third time, only to feel the gentle pressure of her hand on my wrist again.

"Wait…"

I drew back. She let go of my arm, then got up on her knees, twisting herself around so that her body was facing me.

"That's better," she murmured, resting her hands on my shoulders.

Even though the rest of her was undeniably lovely, it was difficult for me to look at anything other than her eyes, half-closed, glowing with warmth, drawing closer and closer…

Wanted all of her. Wanted to feel her pressed against me, burning against my skin.

"Yoko," I whispered, pushing one hand against her chest. Her eyes widened, and she pulled back sharply, embarrassed again.

"It's okay," I said. "There's just one thing…"

I pulled my arms one at a time out of the sleeves of my t-shirt, and then pulled it off over my head, dropping it on the floor.

Now we were even.

Yoko froze up again, her eyes growing even wider.

"Oh…" she mumbled, one arm moving almost subconsciously to cover her chest. I shook my head.

"Don't," I said softly, reaching forward and putting my hand on the arm that hid her breasts.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, shaking slightly. "I just…well, I wasn't expecting you to be so…"

She trailed off awkwardly, and I smiled.

"Perfect?"

She nodded.

"Hmm. Here," I said, taking hold of her hand and pulling it away from her chest, toward my own. She cringed slightly but made no move to stop me; gently, I settled her hand on my skin, the heel of it resting between my breasts.

"What does it feel like?"

"I…" she stuttered, obviously trying to keep her eyes on my face. "Soft…warm…feels like skin…"

"Pretty realistic, isn't it?" I said.

I let go of her hand; she didn't pull it away.

"It's a shame the rest of my body wasn't held to the same standard. Several teams of engineers designed everything about it; most of them were men, if you couldn't already tell. Everything was precisely calculated in accordance with their idea of generic beauty - its height, its measurements, the distance between its facial features. Once those basic blueprints were in place, it was easy enough to produce a few thousand copies of the thing and ship it out to users all across the country. It's really nothing special; if something happens to this body, I can replace it with one that's exactly the same. Thousands of people have seen me naked, and most of them have no idea who I am.

"You, on the other hand…"

I let my eyes wander her body, from her sharp, narrow eyes, full lips, and slightly crooked bottom teeth, to the little freckles and pockmarks that dotted her arms, and then further still to the soft curve of her stomach, down to the sharp angles of her hips.

"When you think about it, it's pretty amazing….that a man from China would come in contact with a woman from Japan, starting a sequence of events resulting in their genetic material being combined at precisely the right moment, spontaneously creating a new, completely unique body...A body that just grew to fit the ghost inside it, that nobody ever had to sit down and draw plans for, or improve; that's kept growing and changing to adapt to the needs of its user for nearly half a century now."

I took her hand in mine, and then brushed my lips across the back of it.

"I don't know what else to call that other than perfect."

The corners of her mouth twitched into a smile.

"That's awfully sentimental, coming from you…"

I slid my hand up her arm, pulling her in toward my body.

"I like to keep things interesting."

Her skin pressed smoothly against mine, soft and blazing hot. She'd wrapped her arms around my shoulders; her eyes were only centimeters away now, heavy-lidded and drawing closer and closer every second.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Just as it had happened that first night, we'd reached that bizarre point where she was relaxed and I was frozen in place.

After this moment, there would be no turning back. This wasn't going to be like the nights I spent with my girlfriends to distract myself; this was a physical commitment to possibly the last woman on earth I ever should have been sleeping with.

What disturbed me the most was just how much I wanted it. Wanted _her_.

Our lips met, and I could immediately tell that this was something she wanted very much as well.

Gradually, my mouth wandered away from hers, tracing a path across her cheek, down her neck, finally coming to rest at the hollow of her throat. My hands ran up and down her sides as I continued to explore her, the light contact making her gasp; she reacted even more strongly when I nipped gently at the hard ridge of her collarbone.

"Oh…!"

I pressed my cheek against her chest, listening to her harsh breathing combined with the steady thrumming of her pulse.

"Like that?" I whispered, my lips brushing against her skin.

"Mmm…"

I must have been doing something right; I'd never heard her so vocal before.

I wanted to hear more.

Her body sagged forward against mine; it was becoming awkward to try to hold her up. I slid my arms around her back and lowered her slowly down onto the mattress, and then settled myself overtop of her with most of my weight off to the side, one hand on either side of her shoulders.

"All right?" I murmured, my eyes fixed on hers. She nodded, and I leaned down to kiss her lightly.

"Remember to talk to me, okay?"

She nodded again.

Another kiss, this one long and lingering, against the curve of her shoulder; she closed her eyes and tilted her head to one side, her lips slightly parted. I followed the slope of her neck up to her pulse point again, dragging my teeth across the soft flesh, feeling her shudder beneath me. My left hand, planted firmly behind her head, supported the weight of my upper body; my right slid gently up over her ribs, curving around her breast.

"…nnnnh…"

The palm of my hand rounded itself over the gentle slope; I held it there, momentarily fascinated by the way her breasts flattened to almost nothing when she was down on her back.

She was panting heavily now, each breath hissing slowly between her teeth, asking for more. My mouth was still tight against her throat; gradually, I kissed my way down the length of her neck, down the soft valley between her breasts, finally resting my cheek against her stomach.

"Oh…" she gasped, shifting slightly underneath me. "_Heavy_…"

"Sorry," I whispered, raising my head to relieve some of the pressure. "Better?"

"Mmm…"

I smiled, kissing the ridge of her hip. "That's good…"

My hands slid down the length of her body, stopping just below her waist. I traced the contour of her hip very slowly with the tip of my tongue, just waiting for her to tell me to stop again; she'd already worked out what I had in mind, and it had made her tense again.

Sure enough, the moment I pressed my cheek against the inside of her thigh, I felt her hand close down on mine.

"Motoko…"

I disliked it even less the second time.

"Hmm?"

I raised my head, and our eyes met. She squeezed my hand, a nervous smile quirking the corners of her mouth.

"Link with me…"

There was a brief moment of awkward silence; I pushed myself up in order to look her in the eye more easily.

"I'm not going to be able to concentrate as well…what if I hurt you?"

"Then you'll feel it too and know to stop," she whispered, running her hand up my arm to my shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

Her eyes pleaded with me. I sighed, tracing the curve of her face with my fingertips.

"I'm going to disconnect if it becomes too much of a problem…."

"That's all right," she said. "Just try it…"

I reached around and drew a cable out from the back of my neck, and Yoko obligingly turned her head to the side, allowing me access. A soft shiver passed through her as I lifted her hair away from her neck.

"I just want you to know what this feels like…for me…"

I paused, and then kissed her briefly on the cheek.

"Thank you…"

Sharply, I pressed the connector into the corresponding port.

There was no waiting for her barrier this time; the moment I made the connection, I was in, sinking rapidly toward the center of her consciousness.

I lowered myself carefully onto the bed, letting my mind acclimate to the sensation of being inside two bodies at once. I'd controlled two remote prosthetics at the same time before, but this was different – I couldn't actually _move_ the other body, and everything I did with my own just distracted me even more.

Too far down…needed to pull back…

I ran my fingers in slow circles over Yoko's arm as I moved around inside her head, searching for a balance where I could still feel her without completely incapacitating myself. As I shifted minutely over the fuzzy line between our ghosts, I wondered if anyone else had ever managed to do this before.

Probably not; the amount of mental dexterity required was causing even me to have some trouble keeping my head.

_Sorry…do you want to stop?_

Yoko's voice was so deep in my head that I couldn't even register it as speech.

_No…just…I need a moment…_

My hands roamed her body, testing the connection; finally, with all of the certainty of two interlocking pieces of a puzzle clicking into position, I found my spot.

_Okay…feels all right there?_

I didn't need to ask; her feelings of satisfaction had washed over me the moment I'd made myself comfortable. Gradually, I slid myself down to her waist again, my lips playing across the surface of her skin, each touch sending ripples of pleasure across my own body. I wanted to stop and drown in it, but I knew that I had to keep moving for both of us now.

My fingers skipped lightly across her hips, grazing the soft insides of her thighs; gently, I rested my head on her abdomen, just below her stomach. I could feel the weight of it, but she didn't seem to mind the pressure this time.

We took a deep breath, and then I began kissing my way very slowly downward…

_Ahh…Major…_

Funny, how that was still my name in her head.

Her hand found the back of my head, tightening in my hair; I gasped, trying to stay focused in spite of the sharpness of the contact.

…_Yoko, please don't make me stop right now…_

_No…I…_

My perception of her voice faded away; all I could feel was that word, arcing between our ghosts like an electrical current, enveloping me in warmth.

I had tried to push it away since the very instant the thought had first occurred to me, but the fact remained that I was here with her now, as close as it was possible to be with anyone.

She understood why I'd avoided it; in her gentle way, she had accepted it as just another aspect of her feelings for me.

I surged back across the link with a storm of my own emotions, pulling myself as close to her as I could without completely losing sight of my own body. If she wanted a new secret, I would give her one worth keeping.

It was becoming so much more difficult to hold on now, to keep moving…to keep pushing toward her ghost, sinking deeper and deeper down into her center…

She was so close, though…so very, very close…

Wanted to stay down inside her forever…wanted to see her face…

It took all of my will to draw back, to lift my body so that I was looking down at her again, my thumb sweeping in to nudge her those last few centimeters…

Her head arched suddenly back against the pillows, eyes squeezed tightly shut; an enormous gasp tore itself from her throat, and she lay back, panting heavily, her body completely limp.

I could still feel her heartbeat through the link, hammering furiously against the inside of my chest.

She opened her eyes slowly, and then reached out for my hand; I entwined my fingers with hers and lay down at her side, pulling her tightly against my body.

We lay together for a long time, still awake in the darkness, holding, touching, and occasionally kissing. The link between us was faint now but still active, vague thoughts passing between it now and then. In the past I'd always considered this kind of thing boring and indulgent, but now that I'd found someone whose company in this capacity I actually enjoyed, it was nice.

Besides, if ever I was with anyone who needed to be indulged…

Her head rested against my shoulder; her eyes were closed, but I could tell she was still awake. Gently, I smoothed the hair back from her face.

I thought of the memory I'd seen in her head, of the little girl who'd walked at her father's side so long ago, with no idea exactly how far her life was going to take her; with no idea how deeply she would be changed so soon after that moment.

The memory of the dull sensation of erasure, of the blankness of a new identity filled my mind, making me think of another little girl who'd gone through a similar, albeit much more drastic change at about the same age.

That child of beauty, still oblivious to the plain girl who loomed in her future.

"Hey, Yoko…"

She stirred softly, her head shifting against my arm.

"Mmm?"

"You told me a long time ago that your mother changed your name after your father died…what was it before that?"

Her eyes opened slowly, and she studied me for a few seconds before her lips spread into a smile.

"Yoko."

I blinked; she wrapped her arm around my back, her fingertips trailing lightly over my shoulder.

"It's like this…my legal name is written this way…"

She traced the characters against my skin:

**よう子**

"But when my father named me, he wrote it this way…"

**楊子**

"Willow Child?"

She nodded.

"After his favorite proverb: 'Willow trees never break beneath the weight of the snow.' My mother never liked how unusual the spelling was, though, so she changed it."

"That's a shame," I said softly. "It's pretty."

She nodded again, closing her eyes and tucking her head against my chest.

"I've tried to live up to it…"

Once again, the image of that girl drifted through my head, bright and cheerful; when I thought of everything she'd gone through between then and now, how far she'd bent and convoluted herself to survive, even in just the short time I'd known her, I was amazed that she'd made it for so long without snapping.

What was even more impressive was that so much of that girl had managed to stay with her.

I wanted to tell her this, but by the time I found the right words, she'd already fallen asleep.

Gently, I eased my arms around her waist; she shifted softly, pressing herself against my body. I lay still, listening to her breathing, relaxing into the rhythm of her pulse, slow and steady against my chest.

I thought of the bizarre, twisted path that had led both of us here to this moment; thought of how so many little things could have changed along the way, sending either of us in a completely different direction, and my arms tightened protectively around her.

In the end, all that mattered was that we'd made it here, and that she was with me, safe and alive and wanted.

I settled my head next to hers on the pillow and closed my eyes.

We would both still be here in the morning.

* * *

><p>(AN: And there you have it, three months later ;;; I honestly didn't expect to take quite this long, but we've been busy at work, and I had an anime convention to prepare for and attend. At least it's an insanely long chapter, and I hope it was worth the wait for everyone!

As for future projects, I have at least one more short Yoko story I want to try and get up, but after that, I think I'm going to take a little break from GitS for a while and try something new :D We'll see how it goes.

Once again, a huge THANK YOU! to all of my lovely readers - you guys keep me writing!)


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